Having fished with regionally renowned surfcaster Bill Wetzel this past fall, the topic of reels came up and one of his classic favorites was the Penn 706z. I went searching locally and found one in moderate shape. I immediately replaced with line roller bearing as it was seized, and decided to take the 706z on it's first trip. I'm not overly superstitious, but catching a fish on the first outing with a new rod/reel certainty bumps up my confidence.
I knew from the beginning I wanted to do some drilling / slotting, a mechanical once-over and some new paint.
Mods & Notes:
Rotor: Having a machining background I opted to setup the rotor on the Bridgeport & use a indexable holder to precisely mill the slots. The slots were cut with a 5/16" endmill and the process went fairly well. I also drilled the back of the spool with a series of 5/16" holes. When it came to the counterweight area I put in some blind holes as to not remove much material and disrupt the balance.
Spool Drilling: Sticking with the 5/16 size I drilled the spool using the mill and a rotary table.
Drag: The reel was already equipped with some carbontex drag washers so it ended up just being a cleaning.
Hardware: I tapped all the case screws with 5-40 and went with some stainless Allen heads for a nice clean look.
Paint: For color selection & durability I don't think Cerakote can be beat, my only complaint is it's not cheap. 2 colors + shipping is like $80 bucks, but if your going to go custom why stop at paint. While I like the classic Penn gold & black I wanted something a little different. I have always loved the burnt bronze color on firearms so I figured why not pay homage to the Penn color scheme, but go with graphite black & burnt bronze. I love the way it turned out. The keen eyed will notice I didn't bother to paint under the reel seat. It's going to be fished and against the reel so I didn't mind, plus I needed a place to secure it during painting.
Weight: I did manage to loose 5% weight after the modifications.
Lastly I needed a knob and the Geomexus offerings seemed to be decent both in quality and price.
I can't wait to get it spooled up and ready for some backwater action striper fishing in New England this year.
Wow! Thats beautiful!!!!
Are these services available to the rest of us for a price?
I have to ask...with your skills do you have plans for a custom Emblem or badge?
Quote from: jgp12000 on February 28, 2025, 06:31:09 PMI have to ask...with your skills do you have plans for a custom Emblem or badge?
I was actually just discussing it with a frind of mine, he's a Jewler and we were talking about making an engraved silver ilay for the emblem area.
Very clean work!
A couple comments and questions:
1. The spool lip needs a smooth finish to minimize line abrasion and maximize casting distance. Is there any way to polish up that part of the paint job to get rid of the roughness from the matte finish?
2. There is a type of corrosion where saltwater gets a foothold underneath the paint and can do a lot of damage, as the painted aluminum cannot form a protective aluminum oxide layer due to the oxygen deprived environment. You might want to consider some sort of paint on the rest of the foot, or at least keep an eye on it if you are fishing saltwater. The reel seat traps salt water against the reel foot.
3. Is the purpose of the porting primarily cosmetic, or have you found a functional difference? Five percent weight loss for the reel as a whole is not very dramatic, but it is going to a be lot greater change for the rotor which is also a fast-rotating part, so it might change the winding experience. Less inertia makes it easier to start winding, but you lose some of the flywheel effect for smoothing out continuous winding.
There has been some debate on porting spinning reel rotors on this site, as it takes away some bail load support and allows for more ingress of sand, etc. It would be great to get a firsthand evaluation of the complete set of functional tradeoffs. I haven't seen that yet.
4. Have you considered powder coating with urethanes instead of Cerakote? Much cheaper, quite durable, a bit more prone to scratching, but less prone to chipping than those ceramic coatings that the firearms folk like to use (from what I have been told- I only do powder coating). The same company that owns Cerakote has a powder coat product family (Prismatic) with a huge amount of colors and finishes.
Thanks for sharing!
-J
I have an OEM emblem Jason gave me from Keith's stock.It's yours if you want it?It still has the protective plastic & adhesive backing.PM me your address.
Quote from: jurelometer on February 28, 2025, 06:51:55 PMVery clean work!
A couple comments and questions:
1. The spool lip needs a smooth finish to minimize line abrasion and maximize casting distance. Is there any way to polish up that part of the paint job to get rid of the roughness from the matte finish?
While the surface finish is matte, it is still fairly smooth. I will keep an eye on it and report any findings.
2. There is a type of corrosion where saltwater gets a foothold underneath the paint and can do a lot of damage, as the painted aluminum cannot form a protective aluminum oxide layer due to the oxygen deprived environment. You might want to consider some sort of paint on the rest of the foot, or at least keep an eye on it if you are fishing saltwater. The reel seat traps salt water against the reel foot.
I like it, I'll likely seal the top of the foot as well.
3. Is the purpose of the porting primarily cosmetic, or have you found a functional difference? Five percent weight loss for the reel as a whole is not very dramatic, but it is going to a be lot greater change for the rotor which is also a fast-rotating part, so it might change the winding experience. Less inertia makes it easier to start winding, but you lose some of the flywheel effect for smoothing out continuous winding.
There has been some debate on porting spinning reel rotors on this site, as it takes away some bail load support and allows for more ingress of sand, etc. It would be great to get a firsthand evaluation of the complete set of functional tradeoffs. I haven't seen that yet.
Of course it's 90% cosemetic, however if I were to justify it from the engineering side I'd claim: due to the close tolerance between the spool & rotor any sand that got between the 2 would have no exit path. The porting gives plenty of spaces for sand to fall out. Of couse having open ports for sand to fall out also creates pathes for sand to get in. In my opinion the sand is going to get in regardless (unless completely sealed) and at least ported I have a fighting shot to squirt it with my water bottle or blow it out without disassembly.
4. Have you considered powder coating with urethanes instead of Cerakote? Much cheaper, quite durable, a bit more prone to scratching, but less prone to chipping than those ceramic coatings that the firearms folk like to use (from what I have been told- I only do powder coating). The same company that owns Cerakote has a powder coat product family (Prismatic) with a huge amount of colors and finishes.
I originally thought of using poweder coat, but without a powder coat gun the cost was equil to cerakote once that was factored in. The tipping point was long time friend was also intreseted in painting a firearm with cerakote this winter so I figured why not try it and see how it goes.
wow, awesome job, congrats
Quote from: jgp12000 on February 28, 2025, 07:12:15 PMI have an OEM emblem Jason gave me from Keith's stock.It's yours if you want it?It still has the protective plastic & adhesive backing.PM me your address.
Plenty more where that came from. At least for a 706z
Any chance you would drill out the rotor and spool for my 704. Just let me know how much!!