Yet another do it yourself spool pin tool

[reefmonsta]

Alright, so I only pretty much work on torium/trinidad 30's size reels and above and have been having a heck of a time trying to find an off the shelf tool that works right out of the box for these larger reels. 

Here are two off the shelf tools that were too small to fit on/around the spool:

1) Boca Spool Pin Pliers - $40.00
2) Hedgehog Studio Spool Pin Tool - $60.00




Here are two tools that I hoped I could modify to make work. 

1) Watch Band Link Pin Remover - $7.00
2) Stainless Steel Hook and Eye Turnbuckle with Alumninum Body $7.00



The watch band link pin remover was also too small to work with these reels but I am pretty sure will work on smaller reels when you remove the adjustable base.  The Turnbuckle required me fabricating some parts but havent had the time to make this happen. 


After researching some other forums, I read about modifying a panavise with interchangeable jaws to create a tool to safely remove spool pins.  This is what I ended up buying:

1. Panavise 381 with a vacuum base - $60.00
2. Spare set up of nylon jaws - $3.00
3. Set up steel jaws - $9.00 (didnt buy these yet)
4. Mini Steel Dowel 3/32 by one inch - .23 cents

Things to do:
I used a cutoff wheel to create notches in one side of the interchangeable nylon jaws. Remove both jaws from the vise (two screws hold each jaw in place) and measure out where we are going to drill a hole into face of the nylon jaw.  This is where the dowel will sit.  The dowel will be used to push the spool pin through the spool after making it sit flush with the spool.  I used a 3/32 drill bit and only drill about a 1/4 deep, just deep enough to hold the steel dowel in place.





So here are the steps to remove a spool pin (using a trinidad 50 as an example)

Step 1. Rest the spool on top of the vise making sure the pin drops into one of the notches.




Step 2. When it sits flush in the notch, we can now slowly tighten the vise until the pin gets compressed by the closing of the vise and pushes the pin flush with the spool itself.



Step 3. Once the pin sits flush with the spool, we can loosen the vise and it should look like this:


Step 4. Place the steel dowel into the hole we made on the inside face of the vise and rest the spool again into the other notch in the vise so that the dowel lines up with the spool pin.  It should look like this:



Step 5. When we compress the vise this time, the dowel finishes pushing the spool pin through the spool.  When we open up the vise this time, its should look like this:



Step 6.  Pretty straight forward what to do at this point in time 




After cleaning and re-greasing/lubing your spool bearing, we pretty much just place the pin back into the hole in the spool and use the vise to make it sit even on both sides.  The cool thing about this is works great on larger reels but can be easily modified to work on smaller reels as well.  Also, the vise itself can be used for other things we end up tinkering with.  Hope this helps...

[LetItFly]

Nice work Braddah Reef, you should post this up on the Ulua Forums for some of the other guys that don't frequent this site as much that would probably love to see this.  I know that I'm gonna try this one out thats why haha. 

Aloha

[Nessie Hunter]

WTG,  good job....   Think outside the box.....!!!

[reefmonsta]

Nice work Braddah Reef, you should post this up on the Ulua Forums for some of the other guys that don't frequent this site as much that would probably love to see this.  I know that I'm gonna try this one out thats why haha. 

Aloha

Mahalos LIF, I'll put up a link later today.  Saw one similar vise at Lowes in town that would probably work as well.   Lemme know if you have any questions or like borrow em for a few days...

WTG,  good job....   Think outside the box.....!!!

Thanks Nessie, it took me while but finally found something that could work better for my needs. 

[Dominick]

Wow!  That was like watching Jaws .  Dominick

[Alto Mare]

Wow!  That was like watching Jaws .  Dominick

good one Dominick!

[Biggameaddict]

Nice reefmonsta that was a good job props to you. Does the panavise need to have a vaccum base?

[Bryan Young]

Wow, great innovation!  Thanks for sharing.

[reefmonsta]

Nice reefmonsta that was a good job props to you. Does the panavise need to have a vaccum base?

Doesnt have to be the vacuum base, I just got that because I dont really have a work bench where I live so I actually use the vacuum base to suction to a large pies of plexi glass.  You actually dont even need to have the base to be honest, you can get away with just buying the head.  The equivalent head for my vise is the Panavise 303 standard head that you can pick up on amazon for $24.99.  However, if you dont buy the full vise, you may have to by the nylon jaws separately, but they are only like $3.00 so you should get free shipping on everything. 

Let me know if you go down this path instead and if so, I wont send out those pliers to you...

[Biggameaddict]

Ok thanks reef monsta but i might still need the pliers for the smaller low profile spool and this one for the larger star drags. If i find any smaller steel dowels then i might not want the pliers. Thanks anyway though its cool your so chill about it. Good luck selling it.