Hi all,
What are the factors that give a reel its particular drag curve? By drag curve, I mean how evenly/suddenly drag comes on as you push the lever up. Is there anything you can do to alter drag curve?
Yock
The drag curve is more often than not dictated by the shape of the ramp on the button inside the lever. You know the one that is under the spring beneath your preset screw. In years gone by, Jack Erskine and men of his ilk would regrind these to change the characteristics of the drag curve, and the ratio that it ramped up. Shimano offer a similar service with their Torsa reels. All you do with them is change the button. And in TLD's/Tiagra's you can get the LRS button which ramps up real quickly on the top of the drag range to allow you to positively lock up and ping the line if need be.
I know that Jack still offers that service, but it isn't cheap. I'm sure Cal's would have a very similar service as well.
the other thing that changes the drag curve is the configuration of the belleville spring washers.
funny that you mention the cam. not many paid attention, but the early okuma reels all have very aggressive cams. these reels would ramp up pretty fast. in that respect, they were much better suited to the "west coast" style of fishing with smaller reels, more/heavier spectra and shorter topshots.
Thnaks for the info fellas
Ok, so I'm not prepared to start mucking round with the cam itself. If I want to smooth out the curve so its more linear than parabolic, what's the belleville configuration to go for? The reel is a Shimano TTS 30 and the bellevilles are currently ()()()()().
Cheers
Yock