Today I opened up my new Okoma makaira 50WII to give it a pre-fishing preservation/grease service. The reel is new and not fished before, its has not yet seen fishing line yet
I noted little markings on the side of the spool. This is the right side were the drag system is.
(http://home.wxs.nl/~werve040/haircrack1.jpg)
(http://home.wxs.nl/~werve040/haircrack2.jpg)
First I thought of hair cracks, maybe induced in the forging process butt they seem a little too wide and undeep for haircracks. Haircracks would probably not be visible this easily. On the other hand they also do not look like tool markings. The strange thing is that there is one on the location of each "ear" of the dragwasher where additional machining is performed for the holes for the springs.
I'm a mechanical engineer but do not have other measures for testing this at home (and left the hands on engineering long ago so also not at work) I must have a microscope somewhere, if I just could find it :(
Anybody seen this before or has experience with this?
phew! i thought the spool was going to crack right there. i'm guessing a metal plate is bottoming out at that spot. and it should not be. a thrust washer that is a few thousanths of an inch thick should take care of it if you are having problems. you are probably going to be ok as is, though.
Alan, I thought of that for a moment but that cannot be the case. The markings would have been circumferential of nature if that was the case. Also there are no markings on the drag washer plate wathsoever.
The markings/cracks are strange with that respect that they have the form and location of stress cracks but the dept does not seem to be there and they are too wide for stress cracks as far as i can establish with my limited assesment methods at home. Didn't find the microscope that I must have somewehre but I did find my old super double high quality magnifying glass.
At the end of one of the cracks I could find something that looked like "pitting" where there was a kind of crater with a couple of small lines that looked like a river delta from above.
I showed the spool to a visiting friend (also mech engineer) but than more in the compressor business and he agrees that although they have similarity with haircracks they would be strange for haircracks.
I will try to get hold of a specialist stress engineer.
The cracks are the result of casting. The casting wasn't done quite right and that left them in there as the aluminium was poured.
i think they are indents from the drag pressure plate, right? :-\
Tile, Although all metal is casted at one stage this spool is cold forged and machined. Residual consequences from the casting process are not likely as far as I can establish, especially not due to the consequent distribution along a circumferential line.
Alan, Highly unlikely that this is due to the drag plate. The form and the nature of the cracks/markings would be different. They are located near every key (6 of them) of the drag washer.
This photo is with my current camera as good as its gets. Maybe this helps a little
(http://home.wxs.nl/~werve040/haircrack3.jpg)
i think that in a gun shop they would use an x-ray to check this out.
I would like to hear what Okuma has to say about this. I'm wonder if any other reels in this class has the same crack/scrach in the same area.
Love this stuff. Forging can induce stresses that can do crazy things. The cold heading process of C/F and some R/F cartridges gave me grey hair b/4 I should have had it. Hope you can figure it out.
borchcl
Send me the original Photo files. I will get them to Okuma Engineering to see what they might know.
Send to jnomura@pacbell.net.
Hard to tell from the close up - microscope pic would be better. Kind of looks like it is fully anodized indicating it might be
fold resulting from the forging of the drag slots.
For now try not to mess around with the reel too much so there will be no warranty issues. Hope this is a USA market reel as my
contacts are Okuma USA.
Take Care,
Jim N.
I believe Reinaard is in the Netherlands. Jim, see if you can get any European contacts for Reinaard.
Jim, I have send two pictures to the dutch okuma representative. They will probably pass it on to the European guy and he will probably pass it on to the HQ guy. The market in this part of the world is pritty small for these kind of reels. In the Netherlands there might be just one guy who sells them and he is probably not even able to stock all models. I purchased mine from a guy in Spain who I ones visited and who had most models on stock. I will sent you the pictures full size anyway.
Borchcl, It gives me grey hairs too. This is just and odd case where it is not as simple as it looks. I also thought of cracks in the protective surface layer but rejected that quicly as well.
Alan, The firm I used to work for also did a lot of X-raying. At least 10% of all welds was being x-rayed and in some cases even more. Unfortunately I do not have an x-ray machine at home and the firm ceased to exist and the guys are scattered all over the place. Guns shops are extremely infrequent in around here as firearm licenses are rare and expensive and bound by so many rules that most do not own a gun. You can smoke a blow but you cannot shoot a duck ;)
My other makaira reel is fine
Printed the photos out and showed it to a QC inspector I know and trust. His comment was quick "dude, that's a crack. That's really messed up."
The rest of his comments were "unflattering" at best.
Send it back.
Had contact with the importer for okuma in the Netherlands and he told me that I could drop the reel with the nearest fishing shop which sells Okuma and the Okuma rep will pick it up. My favourite local fishing shop sells Okuma (although not this kinda stuff) so I'll drop the reel tomorrow.
I like Okuma's new products but this was something I was afraid of when I heard they were being manufactured in China, and that is quality control. Those look like cracks to me and they didn't happen because the spool was bent or subject to massive pressure. That spool looks to have been machined with the cracks already in the billet. The machinist should of seen it, also the anodizer, assembly person and finally the Q.C. person if they do not do quality controll on other stages of production. If that billet had cracks in it how many other spools or parts were made from it? I know this is only one spool but I think it is indicative of the culture in China of letting shoddy work go down the line and no one says a word for fear of telling on someone and loosing their job or the job of the person who made the part. I do hope this a fluke and I'm sure Okuma will make it right.
And i hope the world outside China finally and forever learns to keep their production and engineering skills , and craftsmanship and technical knowledge AT HOME . ;D
The story is always the same ................. for almost 30 years .
Reinaard now you know what serviola s been talkin about ............ ;D
good luck with the reel ...................
SoCalAngler ... like button ;)
x2 on your first post Rod Curve and welcome to the Forum.
I thought it was only Okuma's low end reels that lacked Quality Control,well I was wrong. :o
Just wait guys, thats only one reel. Other brands have some reels that make it to stores with missing/bad parts too. ::) Plus I have had no problems with my Makaira :)
no reel is immune from problems. for me the important questions are how often problems pop up and how they are handled.
(http://www.fullspeedfishing.com/gallery/data/500/medium/Picture_104.jpg)
Guy's, please refrain from go China - no China kinda statements or any bashing. That's not where this topic is for.
I opened the topic because I was not fully certain of what I was looking at. The cracks look strange to me but maybe it is because the anodizing was done after the cracks occured.
The topic is to gain knowledge and to establish what I'm looking at. Sure, it should not have passed QC but that point is passed and improving QC might help to prevent this in the future for other reels.
For me, the pressure is on as I got a fishingtrip comming up
Reassemble the reel and go fishing with it. There must be hundreds of anglers out there enjoying there 50WII's unaware that they have inherent hairline fractures. Okuma are aware of this problem and will no doubt take steps to rectify it so you have nothing to lose. Go fishing,enjoy your trip ;D
I'm not fishing for sardines. I need a reliable strong reel that can be securely fished on big fish.
The reel is already in the hands of a local dealer and will be picked up by the okuma rep.
I always believe that aluminum type reels from okuma are made in Taiwan, not China, unless they changed that too since i last checked, and yes, thous seems to be cracks before the reel was even machined. All reel manufactures have different type of issues, including Avets USA made reels. The support behind it is what matters, which is what keeps the customers - happy.
Good News,
I've just been called by the Okuma representative and they had the spool analyzed by an QC engineer. The markings are tool markings from a burr on the tool which was, apparently, not replaced in time. They are not haircracks. Although the scratches are aesthetically unattractive they do not affect the strength of the material. Besides that, they are on the inside of the reel and I'm going to be the only one that sees them
Of course they consulted also the European Okuma representative. They have 6 or 7 pcs of the same model on stock and checked them all. They all do have the same scratches on the spool. Apparently they are from the same batch/series. and gave the QC's the opportunity to look at several spools to come to their conclusion.
Tomorrow is ascension day which is a national holiday (almost all shops closed) and I will have my reel back early next week.
Boghy, you're correct. They are made in Taiwan, my earlier referral to "go china no china" was because this is not a topic to discus that matter.