Reel Repair by Alan Tani

Quote from: nelz on April 25, 2024, 10:12:40 PMLove my 712, caught my first big fish on one.    It's long been retired though; it's just too heavy for its size, auto-only bail, roller as designed binds, no skirted spool, line spooling is not so good. But it is a tank!

Yes its a little heavy, but it's not that horrible. The difference between my 712z and my Penn Fierce 4000 is 2.5 ounces. The auto only bail is probably my least favorite thing about these, but what I've found is there are good ways around this, turning the handle isn't the only option. The Line rollers depend on model, but yes, the 712's is not great. It's just a metal roller on a metal shaft. Maybe when they were new and the plating was fresh they worked ok. Mine do not work well at all. Some other models used plastic bushings which actually work better than you would think.

I'll have to disagree on the skirted spool thing though, although it is personal preference. There's not a huge difference for me, I can use rotor style or skirted spool style reels, and both are fine with me. If anything I have a slight preference for the rotor cup because it gives a much better surface to palm my hand during a cast. A rotor cup and manual bail would be ideal for me.

The spooling can be helped, check my other thread on Penn spinfisher tuning. It's really easy to fix.

Quote from: Brewcrafter on Today at 06:21:58 PM

Quote from: slugmeister on Today at 06:44:45 AM@Brewcrafter, you will have to fill me in as I only fish freshwater. Does the electrical tape turn gummy in salt water? If it makes any difference, I'm sure all I've used is 3M  33+, since that's pretty much the only tape I carry besides colored tape. It might have been super 88, but I never buy that at home. I've taken line off reels I'm sure were on there 10 years and the tape was still good enough I could have left it on there if I wanted. I can understand why the flex wrap works though, it does the same thing without the strong adhesive. Why use grease though?

For freshwater, your concerns are NOT the same level as the salty guys!  The concern being that electrical tape can trap residue that over time leads to corrosion on aluminum or metal spools (I did a quick search but could not find the post from Alan I was looking for yet).  As far as the very mild layer of grease...
In a saltwater environment gives a layer of protection to the underlying metal....
If you do it on the "deep" areas of the reel, this is line that very infrequently gets dumped off the spool - up near the edges line abrasion of putting line off/on likely wipes off any protection (and may also have a downside of leaving residue on your line down toward the "business end" that could be detrimental to fish bites).  Over the years folks have used car wax, Chap Stick, you name it to help coat and protect spools.  Again, in freshwater your concerns are minimal!  Loving your in depth study on these Penn Spinners...thanks for the info- john

I didn't even think about the corrosion aspect of it. No, that's not something we worry about in fresh water. Doesn't that flex wrap soak up water? Or maybe it dries quick too? Do you have to rinse off your reels when you get home?

Quote from: quang tran on Today at 06:28:27 PM

Quote from: Midway Tommy on Today at 06:17:49 PMWhoever told you that gave you some bad advice. 

So I should use a arbor or a spacer ,No body sell them anymore .I have lots of used braid line should I use it

You could use your used braid if you want. Or you can use monofilament. Around here Berkley Big Game is generally the cheapest, and it's still quality line. 10# is usually what I use for backing, but it's not super important. Just don't use something huge like 40# as that doesn't lay right unless you have a really big reel.

Quote from: Geno66 on Today at 04:35:41 AMBoon and jurelometer
The plain bushing that I'm replacing is close to 9mm or roughly twice as wide as the ball bearing (5mm).  The thing that is interesting is that the bore that the bushing is pressed into is only about 4mm long.  My guess is that the bushing will still provide additional support and the short bore that it is pressed into makes alignment with the inner ball bearing easier.  Perhaps someone who knows more can chime in.

A longer bore generally makes alignment easier.  But the alignment here only has to be reasonable- reels are not very precise pieces of machinery.  There was probably some sort of manufacturing consideration.  For example, wall thickness on cast parts has to be close to uniform are the part will shrink unevenly during cooling. This leads to a host of problems- embedded stresses, warping, voids, etc.

And one length does not have to be the same as the other.

Bushing to sideplate is an interference fit (the bushing is slightly larger than the hole).  It will hold the bushing in place for however strong the fit is.

Bushing to shaft is an clearance fit. There is a tiny gap. The shorter the length, the greater the shaft angle before the shaft comes in contact with both ends of the hole in the bushing, enforcing alignment.  As the bushing wears under angled load, a longer bushing will distribute the load and wear over a larger surface area, and do a better job of enforcing alignment.

The reason that the original hole in the sideplate is tapered that way is because it is a molded part.  As the part shrinks as it cools in the mold, the hole gets smaller, creating it's own interference fit.  The taper allows the cooled part to be ejected from the mold.  You will see these tapered surfaces all over a molded part.

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Now that I can see the finished product, I can revise my analysis a bit:

If the interference fit on your new part holds as strong as the original, and you did not affect the seating of the original ball bearing, you probably haven't made things worse in terms of resisting angled force driving misalignment under load. It has the potential to be slightly better, as you have moved the support point farther towards the outside of the shaft.

In terms of addressing axial load (wasn't this the main intent?), you haven't really improved anything as far as I can see.  The clip is still taking axial load.  If the bearing axial load capacity is less than the clip, you actually made things worse. The weaker of the two will be the failure point, so it won't be any stronger than the clip.  But as noted before, axial load is not typically a problem for this assembly.

The advantages that I can see from your approach is that you have removed any sliding contact from the clip to the bearing surface (meh), and you have replaced a press fit wear item (plain bearing) with a more easily replaced alternative (ball bearing, angular contact is probably not necessary). 

The downside is that you have added an externally mounted, highly exposed ball bearing. The type of stainless used in these bearings is not very saltwater resistant, any you have galvanic corrosion to manage against the housing too (don't forget to use lots of grease!).

I am personally not so hot on this tradeoff, but your reel, your choice.

I did find this project interesting.  Thanks for sharing with us!

-J
 

I am certain lines stretch and contract, I don't doubt you there. There may be some absolute trash reels over the years that MIGHT have broken from being spooled with monofilament, although personally if my reel was that flimsy, I sure wouldn't be putting $20 of braid onto it. I would just use it until it broke. That was the case for plenty of reels I had as a kid, although I never once had a spool break. It's to the point I can't even call what you are saying a myth, because over my lifetime I'm sure I've talked to thousands and thousands of fisherman and women, and never once have I ever heard of a broken spool that didn't involve dropping it.

So again, to quote Midway Tommy "I strongly disagree with the use of monofilament as a backing if one doesn't need all the line a spool is capable of holding." That is a completely baseless claim that nobody else will make. Maybe it's different in California as is most things, but around here if you ask 500 people what they use for line backing, you will find some that don't use backing at all, many of those will be using 100% mono, but of the ones that do use backing, every single one of them will be using monofilament. Not a single one of them will have ever had their spools broken from monofilament. If you asked that same exact question in 1995 you would probably get 490 of them using 100% monofilament, and 10 running 100% dacron. You might have found a few guys using 100% straight fluorocarbon too. None of them would have had a broken spool from the line. I'm just pulling these numbers out of thin air of course, but your claims are beyond ridiculous.

Unless either of you two can provide any real evidence that any real numbers of broken spools can be blamed from monofilament, meaning more than 1 in 100 chance, please just stop.

Actually, Tommy is spot on.  Yes - mono has been used for decades (I should know, I have been around for quite a few of them) and has been used with no issues.  And elsewhere in this forum (and Jurlometer has a great breakdown of the physics) mono line can cause problems, especially with plastic or composite spools.  Reason being it has stretch, and with that comes contraction.  Metal spools are pretty much immune to this, but the best materials for backing are inert ones like Dacron, Spectra, or even spool arbors made of wood or cork like what many old spinners came with.  You can reproduce this effect yourself fairly easy; take some quality mono of a given strength, and it is fairly easy to stretch it under minimal tension.  Mark two lines on a pencil, dowel, etc about 1" apart, and tightly wrap 1 layer of mono around this (heavier mono will make it even more apparent).  When you do that the line becomes thinner (basically you have the same amount of material, but now stretched over a longer distance).  When the tension that causes that is relaxed, the line contracts to its original state and the diameter increases.  When you release the tension on that mono that you just wrapped around the pencil/dowel etc. over that inch or so - you will now see that it increases in length by a fraction over those marks that you wound it under tension to (assuming that it is still 1 layer)  Multiply that effect by many hundreds of wraps on a spool, and that expansion of layer upon layer can contain a LOT of energy.   Plastic spools historically cannot hold the tension, and will fail - this is a real thing. - john



 

Quote from: Midway Tommy on Today at 04:30:23 PMI strongly disagree with the use of monofilament as a backing if one doesn't need all the line a spool is capable of holding.

Mono has way too much weather related expansion and contraction. Mono backing is a great way to crack or pop the front off of the spool, even aluminum spools have been known to crack or break when mono goes all the way to the stem.

I only feel the need to have 120 yds of top line for the fishing I do so anything more than that is compensated buy the use of an arbor, or preferably dacron backing, which is relatively cheep and lasts for a decade or two before it needs to be replaced.

I've been thinking how to respond to this, but I can't figure out a good way. People have spooled reels with 100% nylon monofilament for decades. What you have said is pure bologna. I'm not sure if you missed april fools day, or if this is some kind of running joke or what.

Now if we can ignore that ridiculousness, a 650 yard spool of Berkley Big game monofilament is under $10. Dacron is fine for backing too, but it's not cheap like it used to be. I swear even 10 years ago the stuff was the same price as mono. Now it's the same price as super braids. It looks like Spiderwire Durabraid is actually cheaper than Woodstock dacron!

They're pretty cool old reels.  Thanks.

Quote from: Midway Tommy on Today at 06:17:49 PMWhoever told you that gave you some bad advice. 

So I should use a arbor or a spacer ,No body sell them anymore .I have lots of used braid line should I use it

the general Penn Tutorials and Questions would probably be best, and it looks like you are already posting there.  The Magpowers have a following, unfortunately I have not fished one (yet!) - john