Accurate Twinspin and your thoughts

[simondema]

Hi all
I am currently tossing up between a Shimano Stella HG 18000 the 2013 model and an Accurate Twinspin 20. Has anyone any thoughts on these two reels? In Australia Shimano is much more popular and therefore parts and servicing will be easier than an Accurate, as there are very few of them in Oz.
Any thoughts would be appreciated, even though many of you detest working on spinning reels! 
Thanks

Simon

[gone2fish]

Hi

I see no one replied to you, apologies for getting back to you late.  I owned a Twinspin 20, 30 and 50 when they first came out. 

The 20 drag locked up on second tuna, was set at 15lb of drag when it got locked up.

The 30 drag was sticky on three tuna, with 2 of the 3 being lost due to stuttering of the drag.  Took it apart only to find out there was a uneven to the drag plate when I got back

The 50, oh the 50... The bail wire screw sheared off on the first tuna with drag set at 20lb. The bail just fell off the rotor and flopped to the side.

I luckily brought my "Old" stella 10 K with a 16K SOM spool as a general back up.  It ended up being my reel for the rest of the trip and landed over 13 YFT from 80-150 lb in three days.  Killer trip, but all three accurates went back to the store and got stellas instead. 

I do still own and love my conventional accurates, but for now I will wait until they do a revision to the twinspin models.

[JGB]

Worked on both reels. Owned none.
From a engineering and service record perspective :

Twinspin is a simple and robust design. Very water resistant but very heavy with low gear ratios. The drag setting is difficult and the bail rather 'klunky'. It is built like a tank.

The Stella is a very expensive complicated design that still uses a lot of plastics. The drive train is very smooth and high speed and the reel operates just like it's cheaper siblings. The main differences is the spool support and the use of bearings all over the place. I have had to repair 2 stella 10,000/18,000 where the level wind worm failed.  It is suspected that if you wind hard with high drag while the drag is going out (You would need to be a gorilla to do this) that the force on the spool oscillation gets very high (like jamming the level wind on a conventional) and grinds the pawl on the worm destroying both pieces. I think Shimano will take care of the repair later as there commitment to the Stella is very good. The 2 Stellas I repaired were from Japan and not covered by Shimano USA.

The Stella is a Nice reel but more delicate than the Tspin. The Tspin is a old robust design and is all CNC metal and heavy and not nearly as smooth as the Stella. I find that most of my customer use the Stella over the Tspin. t to get the support they buy USA.

Hope this help,
Jim N.