lubricants

[Congerslayer]

My apologies if you know this stuff, but I am going to respond just in case, and other folk might find it useful:

I can definitely see that reel getting emptied at full drag, which might exceed 100lb at low line levels, definitely will put heavier hollow core fir the first 30 yards on the spool so I don't loose as much strength if I need to the off,

Not sure what you are saying here, but if you are suggesting that you might want stronger line at the bottom of the spool because the drag increase as diameter decreases... it won't help much.  If the fish is taking line at 100 lbs of drag at the reel, it is pulling much harder on the hook side where the line will still be lighter. 

Before you feel anything at the reel, all the added friction from the water along and across (from any bowing) the line has to be overcome.  That is why we set the drag so far below the stated breaking strength.  The more line in the water, and the faster the fish is moving, the greater the friction.  I would suggest backing off on the drag when  breakoff is a risk as the spool diameter decreases.

I love my Makaira but it heats up too fast at high drag, the TRX design should prevent that, or so I hope.

The amount of heat generated is a function of the amount of kinetic energy converted.  A "better" drag will not "generate" less heat for the same amount of braking work.

Multiple drag surface pairs  decrease the amount of clamping force required for the same amount of friction, which generally makes for smoother operation, and in the case of lever drags, less axial load on the ball bearings, which is the main reason for doing multiple drag plates.  But the same amount of heat is going to show up.

If the drag surfaces are on separate sides of the spool, you are spreading out the convection, which should help the drag cool faster.  If the drag surfaces are right next to each other, I don't see how it helps much, especially for reels that cover the drag plates with a shield, unless the plates have enough mass to act as multiple heat sinks.

Hot drags are kind of scary, but if they are staying below 400F or so, I wonder if there really is any issue.

-J

About the line, no, I know the hook end get's more pressure and more abrasion so I like top shots, the heavier line on the bottom, just a little bit, is for preserving strength of the mainline when I need to tie a knot to another set up with a bigger reel. For all connections that aren't braid to braid actually I like to slpice on some heavier braid first, same thing here.

That mire drag surface produces the same heat is interesting, I mean in absolute terms,  sure, but wouldn't the temperatures still stay significantly lower, simply cause the heat on each part is lower and can dessipate faster/before getting to a high level? The thing I worry about is the toll it takes on the line, in my experience line that gets hot looses strength much quicker than with normal use, but of course that's off topic, with the lube it just is about getting one that's heat stable and in the unfortunate case it heats up to an dangerous level at least the grease will keep it's properties. Back to heat production though, if I have 4 washers vs. 1, producing the same drag force, let's make it simple and the 1 washer would heat up 100° more, wouldn't the spread to 4 washers mean they each only heat up 25°, same energy being converted to heat, but much less heat in absolute terms? Maybe I got something twisted though,  my physics are on a relatively basic level.

[Congerslayer]

Oh, and for my big fish trips, I'm definetly planning on always having a couple of bottles ready to pour on the reel to cool it down, I mean even some big Everols were completely smoked by big sharks from shore so I can definetly see that happen to some smaller reels, since I load mine with straight hollow core and top shot with heavier hollow I also have more line capacity so each reel will get hotter if it get's emptied than the traditional mono or braid + mono set ups, but maybe, probably in fact, the water bottle does at the end make a bigger difference than the exact make up of the drag unit, just annoying to carry a bunch of water just in case but oh well 😅

[jurelometer]

That mire drag surface produces the same heat is interesting, I mean in absolute terms,  sure, but wouldn't the temperatures still stay significantly lower, simply cause the heat on each part is lower and can dessipate faster/before getting to a high level? The thing I worry about is the toll it takes on the line, in my experience line that gets hot looses strength much quicker than with normal use, but of course that's off topic, with the lube it just is about getting one that's heat stable and in the unfortunate case it heats up to an dangerous level at least the grease will keep it's properties. Back to heat production though, if I have 4 washers vs. 1, producing the same drag force, let's make it simple and the 1 washer would heat up 100° more, wouldn't the spread to 4 washers mean they each only heat up 25°, same energy being converted to heat, but much less heat in absolute terms? Maybe I got something twisted though,  my physics are on a relatively basic level.

Before diving in, the main point that I was trying to make is at least within limits, getting hot is what is supposed to happen.  We expect our car brakes to get hot.  Reels brakes (drag) are no different.

In this situation, heat can move through conduction (traveling through materials) and convection (traveling from the surface to the surrounding fluid - in this case air).  Air is a great  insulator, so if the air around the drag is not moving much (like inside a reel),  there is not much opportunity  for rapid convection.  And any drag shields will turn the drag chamber into a thermos.

That leaves conduction.  Without much convection, this means the components are acting as reservoirs, absorbing  the heat that will be slowly convected later.  This works fine in most cases, as a reel drag never runs for more that a couple minutes, and usually only short bursts of 30 seconds or less.  Plus a cooling off period between runs.

A  thick aluminum spool connected to a drag surface (like on a classic lever drag) makes an excellent reservoir.  A stainless drag plate, not so much.  Drags in contact with both sides of the spool are probably the most efficient conductive reservoirs, as the heat differential at each the surfaces will tend to be greater (your point)

Stacking multiple thin drag plates give you more conductive surfaces, but not a huge change in reservoir capacity, plus stainless is a crappy conductor compared to aluminum.

Modern reels are smaller and lighter for the same drag level support, so also a smaller reservoir.

Regarding line and heat, Nylon and UHMWPE (braid material) are both thermoplastics, which means that they are meltable  ( even injection moldable), so as long as don't heat the line well past the point of melting, you won't be damaging the material.  However, the material will stretch and deform much more easily once it reaches a certain heat level (somewhere in the 200F range), and a stretched line is a thinner line, which means a lower breaking strength.

I should note that I am not trained in this either.  I just learn as I work on hobby projects, so I probably have gotten some of the details wrong.  Tribology can be really counterintuitive, so stuff that you think you know can be flat out wrong.

Hope this helps,

-J

[boon]

What on earth are you fishing for that can run hard against that much drag? Jetskiers?

We have some of the hardest fighting fish in the world here and I've never heard of anyone going beyond ~65lb of drag for a sustained fight.

[Congerslayer]

@jurelometer definetly helps, so more dishwashers basically just increase potential output, not decrease heat build up, only twin drags will make much of a different,  right?
Anyway,  definitely opened my eyes two why no one puts 4(exce0t avet) to 10 drag washers like it's common in spinning reels. Any idea if titanium like in the TRX reels is better than steel in terms of thermal conductivity?
Best Regards

[Congerslayer]

What on earth are you fishing for that can run hard against that much drag? Jetskiers?

We have some of the hardest fighting fish in the world here and I've never heard of anyone going beyond ~65lb of drag for a sustained fight.

Big Hammer Heads come to mind, then there's the infamous Great White that can always happen, actually not too far from where I am there were 26foot monster spotted, from researchers, not some fish stories and within 2 days I can be where 1500lb Bluefin are being caught with 1000lb being very realistic the right time of year, plus I travel a lot...
And once you accidentally get a manta it can take a mile or two at full drag and the only thing you can hope for is that it decides not to spool you, that's also why, for the most part, once a reel isn't really castable[80+] it's really just 130 or 20/0 for me. Safe to say unless I'm up in Northern Norway(there's still Halibut that max out at 700lb, though anything past 500 is basically unheard of) or in fresh water there's always a fish that could humble you, so I wanna have my best shot, lost a couple fish of a lifetime already,  not planning on repeating that,  though if something already took a nautic mile off a 130 there's only so much you can do, tying off only works if the fish decides to slow done for you to tie a kno, my real big fish reels(depends mostly on line class, if I have 50lb line and a monster hits it might be better for the fish to break it off) I have several spliced loops on the bottom of the spool(6-9), so I can attach a snap swivel within 10 seconds, if I have another big rod with me, though I'd say that at 4000-5000yards it's enough, if I were to load a reel with that much thinner line and a fish takes it all, I won't bring it in without killing it and only a fish that big is one I wouldn't keep, but if I load a reel with "only" 2000 yards or less I definetly wanna be ready to tie it off if necessary.
Sorry for writing half a novel, but I think this explains why hot drags are something that's on my mind 😉

[Congerslayer]

About the Carnauba wax, guess I'll just order some, try it on a small reel first and see from there

[jurelometer]

@jurelometer definetly helps, so more dishwashers basically just increase potential output, not decrease heat build up, only twin drags will make much of a different,  right?

It is hard to know for sure if an Accurate style dual drag  does this in real life.  The carbon fiber discs are poor conductors (worse than stainless steel), so things have to get pretty hot before much heat gets to the spool.  If the drag does not get hot enough, this advantage never takes effect.

If we give reel designers the benefit of the doubt (risky, I know ) since the spool is spinning when line is being taken under drag, it would not have been hard to devise something to greatly improve convection. But they actually went the other way to seal off the innards to prevent saltwater ingress.  Assuming that they were paying attention, they didn't think the amount of heat generated was a problem, even on your jumbo 80s.

Anyway,  definitely opened my eyes two why no one puts 4(exce0t avet) to 10 drag washers like it's common in spinning reels. Any idea if titanium like in the TRX reels is better than steel in terms of thermal conductivity?

Anything that  will make the reel wider is a problem with lever drags, so the real estate is limited.

While surface area does not increase sliding friction, a larger average surface diameter means more braking work per revolution.  A lever drag has room for a large diameter disk.  Most spinning reels try to hide the drag disks inside of the spool, so the disk diameter is relatively small, and there is no lever to set the drag, just a twisty knob, so very light clamping force is also quite valuable on a spinner. 

The load doesn't propagate perfectly on a stack of disks, so there is a point of diminishing returns. I wonder if adding even more disks is analogous to adding even more bearings on these reels- just marketing hype.  I could see four drag surfaces being better than two, but ten?

Regarding stainless vs titanium:  Never made anything out of titanium.  Let me look up the properties...[pause...] OK.  There are a bunch of properties to worry about, but sticking to heat:

1. Thermal conductivity (measured by surface area) is about the same.

2.  On the heat reservoir front, they both have about the same specific thermal capacity (amount of heat energy required to raise one kilogram of material one degree C), but since titanium is a bit more then half the density of typical stainless, the disk would have to be almost twice as thick to have an equal heat reservoir capacity, which I am guessing would make it worse for cooling when convection time comes. 

Maybe titanium would be more useful for exposed braking surfaces that needed to be large diameter and very lightweight, like bicycle disk brake rotors.

I have zero experience designing for titanium, so take the above with a grain of salt.

 -J

[Congerslayer]

@jurelometer, thanks, definitely interesting! As someone who delt with a lot of spinners, 10 disks definitely provide more drag then 5, maybe there are diminishing returns,  but the difference is still significant, if you wanted to test it, just use thicker disks in the same reel but with the whole stack being the same height

[Congerslayer]

Today my Carnauba wax arrived, gonna give it a try on a small, relatively cheap jigging reel I don't care too much about

[Congerslayer]

Hey y'all, I finally got some nice ceramic wax, completely taste and odor less(yes, I tasted it, just wiped my tongue off with a towel after) and tried it on a reel, so far looking good, I have put 4 coats so far(I know,  a bit excessive), all wiped off as much as possible,  only the past one only softly wiped off, the thing is that I keep reading about top coats and supposedly what I have is just the base, now it's obviously not for fishing so I'm thinking of just applying a little extra of the same wax before spooling,  or does it make sense to get something else for the last coat? Also is wiping off as much as possible even a g9od idea?
Best Regards and tight lines, Marlon.

[alantani]

i'm just curious to see how this works out!!!!

[jurelometer]

I don't see how extra loose wax is going to help, and If it got into a knot, it would probably make it weaker.  I personally don't like to leave any extra wax on.

The test is to see how well water beads on the empty spool now, and then again after season of fishing.

Looking forward to hearing about your results.

-J

[Congerslayer]

All right, guess then I'll stick with the ceramic wax wiped off. Now I did think of lightly waxing the first few yards of line(I splice the connection so don't see how wax applied after the splice would hurt, the idea is to make the seal self healing, but maybe that would just let water get trapped between those layers, let me know your thoughts on that.
Btw: I waxed the whole reel, just for the hell of it, gonna be interesting to see how well the wax holds where it's actually exposed, I mean the stuff is supposed to hold 3-5 years on cars...

But in general, applying it and wiping everything off with a clean cloth is the right way, isn't it? 0retty new to this stuff.

[Congerslayer]

PS: I'll take a video of how water pearls off, maybe even film the whole spooling process, not sure I can upload it all here but I could post a link to my YouTube Channel