Reel Repair by Alan Tani

Enjoy to read your note about Peen spinfisher ,It make me to dig out my 712z that I bought long time ago , never put line on it .What is the different between 712 and 712z ? For the same size spool with Dam 220 , 712z is much more heavier but it's quality reel I may start fish with it .Other Peen that I use more often is 4300ss and 4500ss 

Not sure who made the DAM SLS reels in Japan.  Some have speculated Shimano.  Maybe the similarity on this drag setup between Shimano & DAM SLS supports that idea?  In any event, take care of those MLX drag disks.  Shimano has no parts for these reels (I called), so replacement would be limited to DIY or finding something from an independent seller/supplier.

The MLX drag system works well in the models I have (200 & 300), but not sure the special parts are any better than some good old keyed/eared washers and good friction disks, as you can find in hundreds of other reels.

Frank

Yes, he is missed.  We honor his memory by keeping the friendly and respectful chatter going on this site, and following the Golden Rule of doing unto others as we would have done to us.

Frank

That's great Ted. I just sent you a PM. You do realize that you gave me that beautiful polished spool?

 Perfect Randy. I'm all in !!

 I don't have Venmo or the other one, but I can PayPal you. Just pm your PayPal info, or I can pm mine and you can invoice me, or I can send you cashola

 Ted

Ted, here are two nice silver 500 spools (one is missing the line peg) and a red one for $60, plus one red spool that a very generous and talented person painstakingly polished and sent to me, which comes free with the other three.

A PG541 just got new lease on life. Thank you Rich for your generousity

I remember that many friends who use loop to loop, bimini, top shot, etc. connections use a specific wax to increase the smoothness of their connections. It should be this one in the photo I attach. For this reason I thought that the product of a large Japanese company like Varivas, which enjoys an immaculate reputation in all continents of the globe, could be a truly interesting solution. As far as I know, there is something silicone-based inside the Varivas spray.

The trick to optimising ski performance is getting the right amount of water on the bottom of the ski. Too much water and, as you touched on, you get a suction-like effect that severely limits glide. When I was skiing a LOT and only getting a couple of years from a pair of skis, we would put an extremely aggressive base grind on the skis in spring, but you can only do this for a couple of seasons before the base gets too thin. Conversely if you're skiing on very cold "dry" powder snow you actually need to encourage water to hang around on the bases, or they get "sticky" because un-melted snow is a surprisingly grippy surface.

Wax is an interesting one. There are hundreds of compounds, hardnesses, blah blah you name it, all with varying levels of effectiveness (and toxicity to local wildlife). For racers it is extremely important, because they care about 10ths of seconds, and their skis only need to do one race before getting tuned up. Even if the wax is completely gone by half way down the course, it has served its purpose if it made them 1% faster through that half. Accordingly top ski teams put a huge amount of time and effort into waxing, which I believe is part of the reason "regular" skiers look at it and think it's important.

There are all sorts of loopy versions of how ski wax works, with one of the more common ones being that heating the ski bases while ironing on the wax causes "pores" to open in the base and entrap wax, which is kinda patently ridiculous. If an enormous complex hydrocarbon could fit inside any pores in the base then water would slip right on in there and your bases would get waterlogged. The theory I think makes the most sense is that at a microscopic level the wax fills imperfections in the ski base/structure, slightly reducing COF, but also that when done properly (brushing/buffing after waxing) generally makes the base smoother and/or lets the structure function as intended.


Significant digression here, but I think the parallel to line conditioning products remains: I would imagine they are actually moderately effective, perhaps for a few casts, and therefore for competitive casters, or maybe someone requiring the utmost performance for throwing lures, they are useful. I would be fascinated to see how long the lubrication effect remains for.

For well over a decade OCEAN, Oregon Coalition Educating Anglers, has been educating and advocating anglers on using barotrama releases and the importance.  We have given away thousands of barotrama releases, not only in Oregon but around the world.  We have even given away well over 1000 high $, but the best releases, Seaquilizers.  I have personaly given out well over 100, including the ones I sent to Alex. 

We met some restance at first but when ODFW fianaly made it mandatory to have a release ready to deploy when bottom fishing it was accepted, in fact a large % of informed anglers wanted it.  Washington State was not far behind.

Bill,
ODFW and a few other OCEAN board members and volunteers did a tag and release study on survival.  Fish do survive but the deeper they are caught the lower the survival.  Unfortunatly I was not able to help this study.

John,
A big bloated yelloweye can float 4#, my release setup uses 6#.  I also have my Seaquilizers rigged on SS  cable due to sharks taking a few from friends.