Greetings! Custom Mitchell 302 how-to

[oldmanjoe]

  I am glad Jurelometer takes the time to type out his response .  I agree with him on his assessment !
     There is no reason to try and break a reel .  Tell us what part you want to break and we can give you the recipe .
 
 The most overlooked is the sloppy handle bushing .  2-5 thousand in the east to west  movement and the gear train heads South . 

[Gfish]

Best reason in the world Joe; cause I CAN!... But,... no,... I can't. Not yet at least. Loaded it with 80lb. mono, stretched pretty tight for mono and hand-wrapped with slightly diagonal loops on the spool, to prevent the line from digging in. Found a perfect rod holder.

Dave's thinking about testing at different winding loads and oscillation positions was excellent, but as is my tendency when there's more than about 3 variables, I forgot completely about it. Next time. Only did static one position tests. Spool about 3/4 of the way down of it's full movement.

Tested my 35# scale to failure, got it to read #40, pulled harder and broke the line. 2nd try, broke the  scale. No-scale tests repeatedly with the line wrapped around a hammer handle resulted in line breakage every time. My best guess is that the breakage occurred at the line guide(only used the one bottom guide). I'd guess the line is breaking at about 60lbs pressure based on earlier use of the weight scale.

Gonna need some 80 or 100 lb. braid.
The reel feels and sounds fine, however, the rotor seems more wobbly than before.
The drag locks down better than I thought it would.
Working on these reels, I've noticed the rotor/pinion ball bearing is on the small side. Height, outside diameter, race thickness, ball size; all too small. This reel has a large rotor and spool.
The 80# mono is no good, maybe too old.

Pictures: 1) safety first, the gloves proved well worth it, only slight pain in my knuckles from the line snap-back.
2) no more digital scale
3) the shorter piece was pressure breakage, the longer was a scissors cut.
4) metal pipe holder rubbing on the stem/seat
5) & 6), ready to test...

[jurelometer]

Good job on the safety glasses!

Your testing did yield some useful data:

1. Evidence that anti-reverse  (dog/ratchet) failure may not be a top concern.

2. Evidence that the stem on the frame can handle higher loads, at least for shorter intervals. That bend in the stem concentrates load and is a point of failure under load for other classic spinners.

3. A possibility that the roter assembly might be the first point of failure under drag load.  It looks to me like there is just a single ball bearing that keeps the rotor aligned.  The bearing pocket in the frame could get deformed, but it would be more likely that the angular load on the ball bearing would trash the bearing.  One other possibility is that the rotor is no longer secured tightly against the pinion.

Maximum drag setting is not as interesting to me as maximum useful (smooth) drag setting, so still an open question here.

IMHO, this starts to point to winding load as the probable weak link, which seems to be the case for spinning reels as general category.  Conventional reels as well, but usually conventional reels are a bit more robust for winding vs. drag load.

I think it is useful to think of maximum winding load as a percentage of maximum drag load.  At lighter settings this would be 100%, such as the case with freshwater fishing where we can occasionally be turning the handle and not taking line), but at the higher end, it can be too difficult to wind against something like 30 lbs of drag, especially with a single speed reel with high gear ratio.  You could play with the reel at different drag settings and figure out what a practical winding load maximum is for this reel.

If you can wind under what you decide is the max practical winding load (make sure that you are winding in line- not a drag slip test) without breaking anything, then we have some evidence of the stock reel's ability to handle short term load.  If it fails, then we have some evidence for what to look at to potentially improve it.

The next step would be simulating long term usage under heavy load.    Long drag runs then winding it all back in under load. Repeat.  Repeat.  Repeat...

Not suggesting that you do all this, just spelling out the process as I see it.

The first steps that you have taken are already useful.

-J