Okuma makaira 50w strange spool scratches under drag plate

[Reinaard van der Vossen]

Today I opened up my new Okoma makaira 50WII to give it a pre-fishing preservation/grease service. The reel is new and not fished before, its has not yet seen fishing line yet

I noted little markings on the side of the spool. This is the right side were the drag system is.



First I thought of hair cracks, maybe induced in the forging process butt they seem a little too wide and undeep for haircracks. Haircracks would probably not be visible this easily. On the other hand they also do not look like tool markings. The strange thing is that there is one on the location of each "ear" of the dragwasher where additional machining  is performed for the holes for the springs.

I'm a mechanical engineer but do not have other measures for testing this at home (and left the hands on engineering long ago so also not at work)  I must have a microscope somewhere, if I just could find it

Anybody seen this before or has experience with this?

[alantani]

phew!  i thought the spool was going to crack right there.  i'm guessing a metal plate is bottoming out at that spot.  and it should not be.  a thrust washer that is a few thousanths of an inch thick should take care of it if you are having problems.  you are probably going to be ok as is, though. 

[Reinaard van der Vossen]

Alan, I thought of that for a moment but that cannot be the case. The markings would have been circumferential of nature if that was the case. Also there are no markings on the drag washer plate wathsoever.

The markings/cracks are strange with that respect that they have the form and location of stress cracks but the dept does not seem to be there and they are too wide for stress cracks as far as i can establish with my limited assesment methods at home. Didn't find the microscope that I must have somewehre but I did find my old super double high quality magnifying glass.

At the end of one of the cracks I could find something that looked like "pitting" where there was a kind of crater with a couple of small lines that looked like a river delta from above.

I showed the spool to a visiting friend (also mech engineer) but than more in the compressor business and he agrees that although they have similarity with haircracks they would be strange for haircracks.

I will try to get hold of a specialist stress engineer. 

[Tile]

The cracks are the result of casting. The casting wasn't done quite right and that left them in there as the aluminium was poured.

[alantani]

i think they are indents from the drag pressure plate, right?   

[Reinaard van der Vossen]

Tile, Although all metal is casted at one stage this spool is cold forged and machined. Residual consequences from the casting process are not likely as far as I can establish, especially not due to the consequent distribution along a circumferential line.


Alan, Highly unlikely that this is due to the drag plate. The form and the nature of the cracks/markings would be different. They are located near every key (6 of them) of the drag washer.

[Reinaard van der Vossen]

This photo is with my current camera as good as its gets. Maybe this helps a little

[alantani]

i think that in a gun shop they would use an x-ray to check this out. 

[Rare]

I would like to hear what Okuma has to say about this. I'm wonder if any other reels in this class has the same crack/scrach in the same area.

[borchcl]

Love this stuff. Forging can induce stresses that can do crazy things. The cold heading process of C/F and some R/F cartridges gave me grey hair b/4 I should have had it. Hope you can figure it out.
borchcl

[JGB]

Send me the original Photo files. I will get them to Okuma Engineering to see what they might know.

Send to jnomura@pacbell.net.

Hard to tell from the close up - microscope pic would be better. Kind of looks like it is fully anodized indicating it might be
fold resulting from the forging  of the drag slots.

For now try not to mess around with the reel too much so there will be no warranty issues. Hope this is a USA market reel as my
contacts are Okuma USA.

Take Care,
Jim N.

[Bryan Young]

I believe Reinaard is in the Netherlands.  Jim, see if you can get any European contacts for Reinaard.

[Reinaard van der Vossen]

Jim, I have send two pictures to the dutch okuma representative. They will probably pass it on to the European guy and he will probably pass it on to the HQ guy. The market in this part of the world is pritty small for these kind of reels. In the Netherlands there might be just one guy who sells them and he is probably not even able to stock all models. I purchased mine from a guy in Spain who I ones visited and who had most models on stock. I will sent you the pictures full size anyway.

Borchcl, It gives me grey hairs too. This is just and odd case where it is not as simple as it looks. I also thought of cracks in the protective surface layer but rejected that quicly as well.

Alan, The firm I used to work for also did a lot of X-raying. At least 10% of all welds was being x-rayed and in some cases even more. Unfortunately I do not have an x-ray machine at home and the firm ceased to exist and the guys are scattered all over the place. Guns shops are extremely infrequent in around here as firearm licenses are rare and expensive and bound by so many rules that most do not own a gun. You can smoke a blow but you cannot shoot a duck

My other makaira reel is fine

[Jim]

Printed the photos out and showed it to a QC inspector I know and trust. His comment was quick "dude, that's a crack. That's really messed up."
The rest of his comments were "unflattering" at best.
Send it back.

[Reinaard van der Vossen]

Had contact with the importer for okuma in the Netherlands and he told me that I could drop the reel with the nearest fishing shop which sells Okuma and the Okuma rep will pick it up. My favourite local fishing shop sells Okuma (although not this kinda stuff) so I'll drop the reel tomorrow.