Testing star drag with luggage scale

[JasonGotaProblem]

My 900H from Keith has 32# of silky smooth drag with a full spool. And I think it's entirely maxed out because min drag is like 15# and I don't love that. It's a concern with any aggressive drag mod, at least to me, I call it topping out, which I guess is the conceptual opposite of bottoming out the star. I want the drag to be near zero when the star is all the way out. In this case that might mean I just need to shave the spacer a bit but I haven't opened it up yet to look. I can get similar drag numbers from much smaller reels, and I don't fish in water deep enough to warrant a spool that size.

[Keta]

We fish 700' and deeper off the Oregon coast for halibut.

[Decker]

Joe, don't confuse ignorance with a lack of interest.  You and Gary in Alaska may be the only ones who have recognized the potential of a Sealine.

Steve, you have a great way of putting things in perspective.   Yeah, Gary is larger than life with those garage Sealine gear/drag mods.  Don't forget about Porthos - quite an innovator, but we don't hear much from him lately.  And Bryan (may he rest in peace) invented several 5-stacks for them.

I have several Sealine 600H reels I was planing on selling on eBay but I am not a big fan of their platform.  They are rough on the outside but the internals are in good shape and would workbfor upgrade tinkering.  If anyone is interested I will take $10.00 each plus shipping for them.

Sooo tempting, but I have two 600s.  Maybe...

So you're fishing the 349H's at 700 feet and deeper - cool.  You must have some serious old-man muscles.

If a stock 600H can fish those conditions, maybe my 400H with 5-stack can do the work too.  Jason's experience is encouraging also.

[jurelometer]

If the goal is load handling performance, you have to find the weakest link in the system, fix that, move on to the new weakest link, and so on.  This requires destructive testing.  Sal did this, most folks didn't.  They just enjoyed loading up their reels with upgraded parts.  Nothing wrong with that, if your goal is to load up your reel with upgraded parts.

If you take an old Jigmaster, upgrade the gear sleeve to stainless so the end doesn't round off when you wind, and smooth out the drag, you can turn a 6 lb max drag into a 8-10 max drag reel. Cost you about $50-60 USD.  Perfect for 30 lb mono.  You can also upgrade the bridge plate, add stainless gears and star, machined aluminum frame and side plates, a custom handle arm  and still have an 8-10 lb max drag reel for about $300-400 worth of upgrades.  Some of the upgraded reels are better for casting or run a bit smoother, and a solid frame does help with load at the high end, so there are some other functional benefits, but a lot of it is old fashioned hot rodding for the fun of it, just like folks do to old cars that never get raced hard. Nothing wrong with that.  Depends on your goals.

Haven't played with those Daiwas, but since the design is quite similar, to the Penn Jigmasters and Senators, I expect that you will encounter a similar situation, albeit with less upgrade parts available.    I believe that the Daiwa models we are talking about came stock with a solid aluminum frame, which is useful if something else doesn't fail first. 

-J

[Keta]

You are right on the Diawa Sealine frames.


As for fishing my 349s for deep halibut, 3 years ago I went to a Tanacom Bull 750, arthritis sucks.

[Decker]

If the goal is load handling performance, you have to find the weakest link in the system, fix that, move on to the new weakest link, and so on.  This requires destructive testing.  Sal did this, most folks didn't.

So that's what he was up to... destructive testing. 

Alex told me he blew up a Sealine 50H by basically using it to anchor a boat using an overtightened drag in tidal current, and the frame came apart from a sideplate.

I'm definitely willing to experiment, and the reels can be bought cheaply enough to destroy some parts.

But to get back on track for the moment, I want to see the max drag number I can get from the 300H.  So far I've gotten up to about 18lbs and it has always been smooth with carbontex and Cal's.  Maybe that is the max.  I think the adjustment could be smoother with stronger bellvilles, so I'll probably try that.  Next step is to open and examine it.  Or just take it fishing and see if I can break it on the boat