I just replaced the main and pinion gear with the high speed 4-1 SS gears. Also SS eccentric jack, yoke, DD bridge, and gear sleeve. Also new Tiburon frame and spool. When I put it together there is a lot of grinding and rumbling when the reel is in gear. Freespool is poor, and if I turn the handle in freespool I still get the gear grinding. Reel worked fine in it's original configuration.Does anyone have an idea where I should look first?
Thanks,
John
Wow, lot's a new parts. I would disassemble, then rebuild, but only use one new part each of the 6 times you might godda do it. This has a "chance" of identifying the not quite fitting right part. Then again, it could be 2 or more new parts causing the issue.
Kinna sounds like the pinion is tilting which would be a result of the yolk out of alignment. This would cause excessive pinion rub on the spool shaft, and maybe pinion to main-gear misalignment(grinding).
Interesting. Thanks for posting. Wanna see how this one comes out.
Start by checking the drag stack height. Then check the eccentric jack to make sure the pinion is disengaging fully from the main gear. You can bend the ears on the jack to increase yoke travel.
Many times it takes some tweaking to get custom parts to work together perfectly. Sometimes filing a little bevel on the leading edge of the yoke can be helpful A tiny bend to the eccentric ears but not too much
The SS gears can be noisy too
Try like G said and mix in stock parts and find the trouble maker
Thank you for the advice everyone. The drag stack hadn't occurred to me. This was originally an older reel, practically unused, with the brake lining drag washers. So I changed them to the Penn HT 100 five stack with new metals. Another variable! The spool is skewed to the tailplate side in the Tib T4NK frame. I am going to put it back together with original posts, spool, and stand for tinkering purposes. Don't want to strip the holes in the Tib frame taking it apart a few dozen times. I'll get it right tho.
Thanks, John
Quote from: Finest Kind on May 21, 2023, 11:34:02 AMThe spool is skewed to the tailplate side in the Tib T4NK frame.
Can you post a picture of that issue?
Quote from: Shellbelly on May 21, 2023, 12:50:24 PMQuote from: Finest Kind on May 21, 2023, 11:34:02 AMThe spool is skewed to the tailplate side in the Tib T4NK frame.
Can you post a picture of that issue?
Actually I just put it back in the original frame. Same issue. Traded out the SS yoke and eccentric jack for the old brass, tried bending the ears on the brass eccentric jack a bit, filing the edge of the yoke, nothing helped. Now the SS yoke and eccentric are back in. I just noticed that with the drag backed all the was off, it seems smooth. When I tighten the drag, the gears are very rough and rumbling with the reel in gear, and in freespool when I turn the handle there is rough grinding as if the pinion and main gear are still touching. This only happens when I start to tighten the drag. So somehow the drag is involved. Just have to figure out how.
John
Try polishing the spool shaft with steel wool and look for burrs where the pinion gear engages the spool.
I can't get past the spool being skewed in the frame issue. If that doesn't get resolved, the reel, in any rendition you choose, will likely not meet your expectations. Bearing-to-bearing misalignment affects the movement of most of the other gear-side parts.
If you're adjusting parts before spool alignment is achieved, you could be adjusting to the misalignment and might have to re-adjust (or replace parts) after alignment.
Tough to advise without sitting next to the reel!
I find that when working with custom parts from different manufacturers, that you will likely need to fit each part to the reel and confirm that it fits correctly before moving on to the next.
What main and pinion are you using?...where did you acquire them? Confirm that this is a matched set and that they are from a reputable source. How does the ID of the pinion look? This can be polished when necessary.
What washer do you have under the main?...and which gear stem are you using?
Also, a word of caution when bending tabs on your stainless eccentric jack: These are hard and you can break the tabs (don't ask how I know). If you really need to tweak the tabs I would suggest annealing them first but no guarantees as I haven't had to do this myself.
Lastly, how much have you experimented with spool centering? Sometimes a little right of left movement can make a big difference.
Read this, see if it helps send in the right direction...
https://alantani.com/index.php?topic=31860.msg372415#msg372415
- john
I've had to shim the spool to get it centered correctly.
Spools can be centered with a shim down in the ball bearing cup. Delrin dots punched out with a leather hole making tool are what I use. This may not solve the problem but might be a good start. The main gear and pinion will/should always be completely engaged. The 'shoulders" on the spool shaft and the female part of the pinion could be touching in freespool(not supposed to).
It's impossible to see all this when the reel is partially or fully assembled and involves a-lot of experimentation. This makes it fun and interesting to me...
I have a lot of information here. Thank you. I am going to have another look. I got all the internal parts from Mystic reels. Pro challenger bridge, main and pinion gears, eccentric jack, yolk. Cortez conversions gear sleeve. Tiburon spool and frame. Delrin under gear washer. This is an older external drag reel so I will check to see if I can detect any rubbing.I have only had to shim the spool on one other reel that I have, a surfmaster. But the reel worked perfectly even before I shimmed the spool. The shimming did improve the freespool. I am going to start on this one by polishing the spool shaft and taking a look at the pinion.
John
External drags do not have as much problem with stack height.
I measured the thickness of the main gear and as John Brewcrafter mentioned, it is thicker, 15/1000. I can't tell if it is rubbing though. I am waiting on new Penn brass main gear and new pinion. When I get them I will try them out and if that fixes it I might save the SS gears for another reel. Meanwhile I polished the spool shaft, inside of the pinion and yoke with 0000 steel wool. Didn't help. In the pictures you can see that with the reel together the spool is pushed toward the tailplate side. Before I tighten the screws the spool sits in the frame perfectly. Now I'm wondering if the main gear hitting the side plate could be pushing the spool over
Use a Sharpy and blacken the gear where you think it is rubbing, reassemble, crank it and dissamble. If the pen marks are rubbed you found a problem.
Quote from: Keta on May 21, 2023, 10:07:56 PMUse a Sharpy and blacken the gear where you think it is rubbing, reassemble, crank it and dissamble. If the pen marks are rubbed you found a problem.
Thanks, I will try that!
I read all the updates to this thread and I would suggest centering the spool before delving into the mechanicals.
To do this, remove the bridge, gears, and eccentric jack. Put the spool back into an empty frame and adjust the end-play on the tail-plate. If you can't center the spool, look to your crank-side bearing cup. Pull the bearing and check for shims under it. Also check the bearing for thickness. One last check is to make certain the bearing cup is pressed all the way in.
Once your spool is centered and free-spooling well, you can move on to the mechanical bits in the drive train.
I took the reel apart again this morning to try the suggestions from PacRat and Keta, but I never got that far. The blue Yamaha grease I used on the gears had turned Red! Yamaha/bakelite grease was all over the main gear, pinion and sideplate. I cleaned the main gear off and put it back in the sideplate. It is rubbing everywhere. I measured it with my cheap calipers, and the aftermarket gear is substantially larger in every dimension. Total diameter across the gear teeth:20/1000 >. Total diameter across flange:6/1000 >. Total thickness:9/1000 >. Not sure how this obviously very high quality gear set could be that far out of spec. At any rate, I will be going back to the stock gear set for this reel. Thank you everyone for the help and advice. I would not have known where to begin on this one!
John
Hmmmm. Very interesting. Never measured one before...
Quote from: Gfish on May 23, 2023, 04:04:08 PMHmmmm. Very interesting. Never measured one before...
HaHa! Yup. Me neither!
Interested to see if the stock gears make it work.
Quote from: Finest Kind on May 22, 2023, 04:41:12 PMI took the reel apart again this morning to try the suggestions from PacRat and Keta, but I never got that far. The blue Yamaha grease I used on the gears had turned Red! Yamaha/bakelite grease was all over the main gear, pinion and sideplate. I cleaned the main gear off and put it back in the sideplate. It is rubbing everywhere. I measured it with my cheap calipers, and the aftermarket gear is substantially larger in every dimension. Total diameter across the gear teeth:20/1000 >. Total diameter across flange:6/1000 >. Total thickness:9/1000 >. Not sure how this obviously very high quality gear set could be that far out of spec. At any rate, I will be going back to the stock gear set for this reel. Thank you everyone for the help and advice. I would not have known where to begin on this one!
John
If you are comparing a 3.25:1 gear set to a 4:1, the new main gear is going to have a larger outer diameter (and the pinion a corresponding smaller diameter). That is how you get the higher gear ratio. The ratios of the pitch diameter (at about the center of the tooth) has to change. Some extra ratio can be claimed by going to smaller teeth, but this will only provide a smaller change in gear ratio. So they probably had to cut it a bit close on clearance for the main gear. Penn went through lots of sideplate and bridge iterations, and some dimensions changed around a bit over time.
The other dimensions that have to be accurate are the center hole diameter and the inside wall diameter where the drag washers go. The overall height should be the same, but I wouldn't be surprised if an aftermarket supplier went a tiny bit tall to better fit a custom drag stack, and found that it fit on the reels that they tested with.
I never hotrodded a 113H, but if I remember correctly, the folks that did a bunch sometimes had to do a bit of grinding on the sideplates to get the necessary clearances. If you look around for posts from Sal (Alto Mare), you will probably find some good tips. Sal was the master at hot-rodding old Penns.
-J
Sal was involved in the design of Pro Chalenger parts.
Penn tolerances were all over the place, I know at least one time loose sideplate was used for dimensions and fitting resulting in gears that rubbed tighter sideplates.
If you are comparing a 3.25:1 gear set to a 4:1, the new main gear is going to have a larger outer diameter (and the pinion a corresponding smaller diameter). That is how you get the higher gear ratio. The ratios of the pitch diameter (at about the center of the tooth) has to change. Some extra ratio can be claimed by going to smaller teeth, but this will only provide a smaller change in gear ratio. So they probably had to cut it a bit close on clearance for the main gear. Penn went through lots of sideplate and bridge iterations, and some dimensions changed around a bit over time.
The other dimensions that have to be accurate are the center hole diameter and the inside wall diameter where the drag washers go. The overall height should be the same, but I wouldn't be surprised if an aftermarket supplier went a tiny bit tall to better fit a custom drag stack, and found that it fit on the reels that they tested with.
I never hotrodded a 113H, but if I remember correctly, the folks that did a bunch sometimes had to do a bit of grinding on the sideplates to get the necessary clearances. If you look around for posts from Sal (Alto Mare), you will probably find some good tips. Sal was the master at hot-rodding old Penns.
-J
[/quote]
Thanks for the information. I actually thought the higher ratio gear would have thinner, and more teeth. I was surprised how beefy the teeth actually are. Brewcrafter pointed me in the right direction with a link to an excellent tutorial on how to fix the problem of the tight sideplate on the older external drag 113H reels. Unfortunately I am all in on my fishing season at this point and my time is short for working on reels. I try to confine that to the off season. I will end up fishing this reel with the 3.25-1 gears this season and see how I like it. Next winter I may give the sideplate modification a try if I feel it is too slow for the BFT jigging I plan to do with the reel. Thanks again to all the members who have shared their time and expertise.
John
I will encourage you to go back and look again at the link I sent above. The reel you see in the background of this photo is the one that was being modified in that post. Old machine habits die hard, and in the box with the reel I saved my build notes and pulled them out tonight in the hope that it might be helpful. Pretty much the same reel (113h External Drag), and the only "stock" Penn parts are the ones you can see (the side plates and rings) and pretty much the same quality aftermarket parts that you have (my joke - this is how you make a $40 reel into a $400 reel - and I have done it more than once - so much for my sanity ;D . As you can see in my original post, it took some minor massaging (this was the 3rd one I had done this to). Lee is spot on about part tolerances, of the 3 (all same model and roughly same model run with external drag) the amount of fitting varied from minor to "almost a drop in". For measuring clearances, don't overlook "poor man's Plastigage" AKA I stole Play-doe out of my kids toy closet. I am confident that the parts you have will work just fine with a little fitment - john 113h Modifications.jpg
Brewcrafter is spot on. I had to Dremel a hair on one and none on another.Cheers:
Todd
Not sure if anyone mentioned this, so I'll pop the question.
Is your yoke installed upside down ?
Does your pinion move easily inside the yoke ?
Also some people have had to smooth out the groove on the pinion to get smoother feeling gears
Maxed Out, I'm not sure what you mean by upside down. I think one of the pics I put up shows the yoke in the sideplate, but I'm confident that that's not the problem. It's the main gear rubbing inside the sideplate that is the issue. I am going to deal with it via hand work as per the tutorial Brewcrafter attached to an earlier reply since there is not a lot of room for error in the grinding, and I don't trust myself with a Dremel. Pretty tight quarters, and I really don't want to mess up this minty old sideplate.
Thanks again,
John
Yokes have rounded off edges on one side, and squared egdes on the other. The rounded edge side goes up when installing. If it upside down, the pinion will grind on the square edge
Ted
I have a few external drag sideplates. If you screw it up i can give you another for the cost of shipping.
Quote from: Maxed Out on May 24, 2023, 06:35:42 PMYokes have rounded off edges on one side, and squared egdes on the other. The rounded edge side goes up when installing. If it upside down, the pinion will grind on the square edge
Ted
[/quoteOh OK. The funny thing is, on the SS yoke, I could not tell which side was which. They both look rounded and very smooth. Definitely nicer than the standard brass. But I did try it both ways and that didn't help. Also switched back and forth with the original brass yoke that was in the reel. No dice!
Quote from: JasonGotaProblem on May 24, 2023, 06:42:11 PMI have a few external drag sideplates. If you screw it up i can give you another for the cost of shipping.
Thank you Jason. That is a very generous offer! I am going to put it back together with the stock gears in a couple of days and see how it goes. I won't get to the sideplate modifications until next winter. If I mess it up, I will give you a holler!
Thank you,John
It only takes a few minutes.
Quote from: Keta on May 24, 2023, 11:12:52 PMIt only takes a few minutes.
I sent the gear back to Mystic for a refund. With all SS internal parts and pinion (and steel main gear), plus the aluminum frame, I believe I will have the strength I am looking for, and more torque as well with the 3.25:1. If the reel is too slow for my needs, then I will make the change. Of all the mods I decided to do on this reel, the high speed gears were the only one I was not 100% sold on, so I don't mind waiting till next season if need be.
John
With the upgrade drag, stainless sleeve and DD bridge you should be fine, plenty strong. Hope you post a few pictures of the fish you catch with it
John - sounds good, one other area that I would caution to be aware of on assembly, especially since you are going with the stock gear (which those steel gears are fine, BTW - elsewhere I believe there is a thread on stock Penn gears and they are considered some of the best for quality). Back then due to the relatively thick factory metal drag washers and thick asbestos friction material, the slots for the eared metal washer were not cut all the way to the bottom of the gear (A - it was unnecessary, and B - probably marginally greater strength down at the bottom of the gear - nothing that any of us would ever tax in our wildest dreams, but just sound engineering). When upgrading to any of Brian's excellent 5 stack or even 7 stack drags, note that there are sometimes varying thicknesses of CF included, and it would be prudent to check that with the bottom (first two layers) of Gear/CF/keyed metal/CF/eared metal that the metal eared washer is not bottoming out on the grooves of the gear, thus preventing complete compression of the drag stack and maximum drag. We are talking thousands/inch here, and while Brian's instructions are very comprehensive on the order of installation, fumbling on the order is an easy mistake to make (ask me how I know :D ), and again as Lee pointed out, manufacturing tolerances back then were good, but this is one spot where .001 can make a difference between just OK drag numbers and truly stellar drag numbers. Look forward to you sharing with us how the reel performs for you this season (you have a really nice setup!) and if you have any other questions; please don't hesitate! - john
Yup. John's spot-on.
I have one of that era's 113H's, with the outside drag opening access plates. The stock metal drag washers are real thick. Got ridda the thick asbestos washers for H100's, but needed two below the eared washer to get the height above the gear groves. It's a shelfie now. A rubber impregnated "top hat"(water resistant) washer and 2-new ball bearings, + the H100's is all I added. Has that 11oz chromed brass spool for wire-line trolling.
Does anyone know about wire-line? Do "they" use it anymore?
Wow. Thanks for all the info guys. I was just looking at the steel gear, I see what John is saying about the slot not being possibly deep enough. BTW, I am using the Penn drag stack with metals and HT-100's. I put the first four washers in the gear to see if the eared washer would hang up on the bottom of the groove. It looks OK, but that's without compressing the drag stack. I still have the original thick metals that were in the reel, they are 4/1000 thicker than the new Penn drag washers that I have. I am going to put an old thicker keyed washer as the bottom most metal below the eared washer which should give me at least another 4/1000. I will test it with a scale when I get the reel together and spooled up. I will be using 80# braid on this reel, so if I get around 20 pounds at the top of the spool I will be happy.
John
Use a Dremel to extend the slots.
Gfish-Wire line trolling is still very popular in these parts for striped bass and bluefish. The 113H and the 114H are the only reels anyone uses as far as I know.You spool 100 yards of 40 or 50 pound test stainless steel wire over backing, I used to use #80 Dacron. I say "used too" because I rarely use wire these days. I used to use it daily when I had a charter boat years ago.It is the only reliable method of catching a boatload of fish for a party of inexperienced fisherman, because the mate lets out the lines, (two) the Captain positions the boat, and the angler reels in the fish. Everybody's happy. 100 yards of wire will get your lines down about 30 feet at 3 to 4 knots. If you go to Montauk on any day the Charter boats will all be fishing wire, like they did 50 years ago, because it's still the most reliable method of putting fish in the boat. Those heavy brass spools are the only thing that stands up to the strain and abrasion of the wire. Aluminum would be destroyed in no time.
John
Quote from: Keta on May 26, 2023, 09:35:54 PMUse a Dremel to extend the slots.
Thanks Lee, I will give that a shot.
I wanted to post an update on this reel since I have it back together and spolled up. I used a Penn steel main gear and pinion. I put one of the original thicker (+.0004) keyed washers in the bottom of the gear to give me some additional clearance for drag tightening because of the shallow cuts for the eared washers on the older steel gear. It seems to have worked, I have 22lbs. of drag at the very top of the spool which is more than I intend to fish with anyway. The reel is smooth with excellent freespool. The spool could use a little shimming, it's a little proud on the gear side, but that's a chore for next winter for me. The only other fitting issue was some filing of the harness lugs which were 3/32" too large for the Tiburon frame. Perfect now. The reel is spolled with 510 yards of #80 braid, with a 20' #100 lb. test fluorocarbon leader. All in all, the reel feels very solid. I'm happy with how it turned out. Thanks again to all the members who have shared their time and expertise.
John
Nice!!!!! - john
It looks great john, maybe if you place a delrin washer under the star, it will be easier to increase the drag when you have a large fish on, good luck & thanks for the feed back, cheers Don.
Glad you got it figured out.
It sounds to me like the higher gears would not be the best choice for what you are doing with the reel.
I made a couple of final modifications on this reel that I wanted to add to the post. I put a delrin washer between the top most keyed washer and the tophat as per Ted and Donnyboat's recommendation. I also added a Maxed Out soft handle and blade from Ted. In terms of how the reel feels in the hand, this was a huge improvement. It also looks fantastic. No harm there. I'm hoping to give this reel a workout in the coming months. It really feels strong and capable. Thank you again Ted!!!
The top continuous operating temp for Delrin is about 180F, and it starts getting pretty squishy in the neighborhood of 250F.
Probably not a problem for cranking down the drag to stop a grouper in it's tracks, but if you are thinking about a long run from a big tuna at higher drag settings, Delrin would not be my first choice for this usage, especially at the top of the stack, but probably not for an undergear washer either.
-J
Oh Boy. Thanks for that info Jurelometer. My concern is that with the top keyed washer and the top hat I thought there should be something in between to eliminate the metal to metal contact. I was envisioning a fish running and my drag screaming like the brakes on a freight train. I tried to build this reel for maximum strength, due to the fish I hope to catch with it, but actually I almost always fish with a fairly light drag. The only time I am likely to bear down is when the fish is circling later in the fight. Then I short pump. I never tried a drag washer under the main gear, but I have seen the old style Penn under gear washers chewed up a bit.That's why I thought I would try the delrin. I'm not looking for higher drag numbers, but I would like the drag as smooth as possible. Back in the 1980's I used to pour buckets of water over my 115 Senators when I had a hot fish on. Very dramatic and it did work well to cool off the drags. I still have those reels, now with HT 100 drags. The dousing didn't hurt them! If I'm lucky enough to get a nice fish with this reel this season I will take a look at the washers and post as to how they held up.
Thanks again,
John
Never a fan of drag washers under main gear. That part is supposed to behave as a thrust bearing, and helps to hold the gear flat. But just I do a few reels a year and Mr. Tani does several hundred, and he likes the CF.
We all jumped on the Delrin bandwagon because somebody (Sal) tried it, and the smaller gap between static vs. kinetic coefficient of friction makes the drag smoother. Since we want friction in the drag stack, providing extra smoothness alone is not a benefit. We want consistency from dead stop to turning.
Rulon will have similar (slightly better) properties to Delrin, and has a much higher temperature range. It may be worth trying.
I don't think that you should be getting steel on steel friction with a stock (or properly customized) drag stack.
I haven't played with a Delrin top washer, and never understood the point of it, but folks here have reported a smoother drag.
I have put Delin under gear washers on a few reels, and it does seem to smooth out the drag a bit, but the difference was not dramatic for me. Nothing wrong with the stock washers, either. CF will effectively add another drag washer to the stack, but you loose the thrust bearing, which just seems like bad mechanical design to me. But while CF might shred, at least it won't melt.
-J
The top washer is keyed and turns with the gear sleve so there should not be any issues with the spacer sleve and top washer turning.
A CF under washer adds more friction on the gear, more friction=more drag.
If the CF under washer is being dammaged it is either too large OD and the ratchet is eating it or the surfaces it is between are rough and need to be smoothed.
Quote from: Keta on June 16, 2023, 07:19:35 PMIf the CF under washer is being dammaged it is either too large OD and the ratchet is eating it or the surfaces it is between are rough and need to be smoothed.
I would expect that the dog is doing some of the chewing :)
An issue with the gear sleeve design of the classic Penns is that the gear sleeve (including the ratchet wheel), can angle itself out of alignment under heavy winding load. this can cause the dog to get pushed a bit under the ratchet wheel, into that CF washer. I am not sure that you can make the drag washer small enough to entirely avoid this.
Some of our best reel repair pros (I am not one of them) have taken positions on either side of CF undergear debate.
-J
Personal experience that I can't quantify yet: I've found that CF instead of a hard washer has the effect of increasing the resistance to spinning the handle if drag is set high, even if there's no fish on line. It's just resistance to rotation, in both directions. Which is by nature also added drag.
Quote from: JasonGotaProblem on June 16, 2023, 09:55:28 PMPersonal experience that I can't quantify yet: I've found that CF instead of a hard washer has the effect of increasing the resistance to spinning the handle if drag is set high, even if there's no fish on line. It's just resistance to rotation, in both directions. Which is by nature also added drag.
I think there is something else wrong going on. The washer, main gear and the shaft+ratchet wheel are turning in unison when you are winding, so there is no sliding friction. Maybe you changed the stack and/or gear height, causing something else to be rubbing that shouldn't be?
-J
Edit: total brain fart. I retract all of the following. Not sure i agree. In a tight-drag situation the drag star is pushing against the spacers and washers etc which are pushing against the drag stack which is pushing against the main gear. If drag isnt slipping all the above is rotating in unison. But below that is the under gear washer in question and below that is the bridge or brake plate or whatever you wanna call it, which isn't rotating with any of the above. So the under gear washer is getting pinched between something that isn't rotating and something that is rotating. So drag slipping or not it's not unreasonable to think the composition of that material would make a difference when winding with a high drag setting even if not actively under load. But you wouldn't notice it unless the drag was tight.
Quote from: JasonGotaProblem on June 17, 2023, 12:35:22 AMSo the under gear washer is getting pinched between something that isn't rotating and something that is rotating.
amigo, the undergear washer is pinched between the shaft sleeve (which rotates when winding the handle) and the main gear with all the drag stack inside.
there is nothing between the shaft sleeve which rotates and the Bridge plate which dont rotate at all
(or maybe I missunderstanding something here)
Man I need to think more clearly before I post stuff sometimes. I was just dead wrong.
Yup, the top washer is keyed to the gearsleve and does not turn in relation to the gearsleeve.
Quote from: JasonGotaProblem on June 17, 2023, 01:11:37 AMMan I need to think more clearly before I post stuff sometimes. I was just dead wrong.
we all learn something new everyday on this site.
so, you better check your drag stack for something binding on the sideplate, you can mix & match drag washers of different thickness to make them fit all inside the main gear, that or you shaft sleeve is bent and touching the bridge plate which make you feel that resistance on the handle when turning the drag star, that happened to me once, the shaft sleeve should have a bit of play to spin free when crancking the handle.
One other modification I made on this reel that I forgot to mention is that I substituted longer sideplate screws for the original screws that were in the reel. The reel seat screws are obviously too short and need to be replaced, but all the other screws can be changed to longer screws as well due to the Tiburon frame being thicker. That was mentioned in the original TANK thread by Sal, Alto Mare. I tried to follow that tutorial in building this reel as much as I could, except I bought a Double Dog bridge. Don't trust myself with a Dremel.
John