I dunno if I did good or not- but these things are pretty danged quiet and smooth now. These stainless 4:1 gears came on a 113h I bought- they looked new but were not near as smooth as brass gears- were noisy, chattery- unpleasant to the feel.
Took reel apart- removed all the grease- installed gears on old sleeve and arbor. I took some 600gr lapping compound I use for guns and applied it carefully only to teeth of gears. Put it all together on old frame with an old heavy metal spool for good resistance. I watched football- thumbed the spool a bit and cranked away. Then cleaned it all off and did it again with 800grit- 1000grit, and finally with McGuires metal polish paste. Watched two NFL games while doing this. Took a dremel with polishing head and rouge, polishe dthe inner/outer surfaces and outer edge of gears. Got it all cleaned, greased and back together in narrow frame with aluminum spool- extremely quiet and smooth now. Smoother than the brass gears. Was a ton of work. I plan on using this reel for fishing iron all day- I really needed it to be smooth.
I hope I did not hurt anything. For guns- sometimes if a surface gets too polished it can be bad- won't hold oil/grease. I am going to fish it and pay close attention to the feel and sound, tear it back down and inspect for any signs of wear due to lack of lube.
Sounds good Joel - will look forward to your review in due course.
Cheers, Justin
This is not gear lapping.
Please do not do this.
.
Quote from: Robert Janssen on October 15, 2012, 10:04:40 PM
This is not gear lapping.
Please do not do this.
Robert: Please explain. Dominick
x2 - sounded like a good result (re: smoothness), but it's not something I've ever done.
Too late for me- can you expound on your comment though?
I understand the "lapping" is a term used loosely- however I am curious as to what you think could be wrong here?
Other than the reel being very smooth and quiet now- the grease seems to be sticking pretty good- though I may want something a bit stiffer. I ran the reel for an hour last night and then took it down again- looks pretty good.
If you have experience to the contrary i'd like to hear it.
Joel, many guys have done this without any issues as long as we are talking about microns of material being polished away. Not to worry. I think it may be a difference in terms.
I think microns is about right. I don't really know what you could harm doing this unless you put too much compound on, were using a good sleeve/post and the tolerances were opened up somehow.
Explain? Explain how?
Gear manufacture is a very exact process, and gear lapping even more so. What can I say? Look it up. Microns indeed.
Adding grinding paste to gears in mesh does nothing but accelerate wear, eroding the forward facing flank of the driving gears teeth against the opposing flank of the driven, eventually undermining primarily the dedendum of the one and addendum of the other, and the involute tooth profile becomes compromised. It most definitely does not improve the gear.
Think about it on a larger scale: Want a reel to become smooth? Fill it with sand and crank it 'round a million times. Or, my car was running a bit rough. So I poured sand into the oil tank and drove a hundred laps around the racetrack. Sound good?
Having said all that, If your goal is to have smooth feeling gears, I'm sure it works very nicely. In fact, I'll even agree. In that case, all is well. Enjoy.
But to consider it an even remotely correct or proper gear processing method would certainly be erroneous.
.
Now, let's put this into a little perspective.
I have watched a few extremely well trained machinists do amazing things with vital gears on submarines. Lots of lay out die, unbelievably specialized tools, work practices that are beyond the scope of most peoples understanding. In that instance, all of Mr. Jannsen's statements are undoubtedly correct. However, we are talking about a fishing reel, not a nuclear powered vessel. If the reels systems fail, you don't get the fish, maybe you get a knuckle scarred up if you really blow it. In the other instance, well I'd rather not think about it to be honest.
People have been advocating the polishing of geared surfaces in fishing reels by the use of a low viscocity abrasive being ran through the gear train under resistance for far longer than I or most others on this board have been alive. It works, and if you perform the evolution in the manner described by Mr. B it undoubtedly works well.
I am not insinuating that Mr. Janssen's data is incorect. I can only assume that he has a higher level of education and experience in the field in question. I just think maybe we've gone a bit to far on this one.
By the way, I'm glad your happy with your reel Joel.
Ron
Quote from: noyb72 on October 16, 2012, 10:27:00 PM
Now, let's put this into a little perspective.
I have watched a few extremely well trained machinists do amazing things with vital gears on submarines. Lots of lay out die, unbelievably specialized tools, work practices that are beyond the scope of most peoples understanding. In that instance, all of Mr. Jannsen's statements are undoubtedly correct. However, we are talking about a fishing reel, not a nuclear powered vessel. If the reels systems fail, you don't get the fish, maybe you get a knuckle scarred up if you really blow it. In the other instance, well I'd rather not think about it to be honest.
People have been advocating the polishing of geared surfaces in fishing reels by the use of a low viscocity abrasive being ran through the gear train under resistance for far longer than I or most others on this board have been alive. It works, and if you perform the evolution in the manner described by Mr. B it undoubtedly works well.
I am not insinuating that Mr. Janssen's data is incorect. I can only assume that he has a higher level of education and experience in the field in question. I just think maybe we've gone a bit to far on this one.
By the way, I'm glad your happy with your reel Joel.
Ron
Thanks Ron
I am going to go fish my gears out of the garbage now- Robert had me scared there for a second.....
Cheers all.
It's all great information and adding to our collective wisdom.
We're fortunate to have such a breadth of expertise, knowledge and good, old-fashioned trial and error at our disposal.
Much appreciated, Justin
Informative topic gentlemen, very much appreciated here as well,
Thanks! Sal
I always try to improve my reels and there gears,and the tolerance on some of the reels produced today could use a little help.There is nothing wrong with what he did to the gears lord I've used super fine grit automotive sandpaper on some of mine with no detrimental effects but I can also see the overzealous getting too inthused and removing to much material.It always pays to be careful butonly costs money to experiment.Keep the ideas and opinions coming,they all help.
William
Yes, technically, Robert is correct.
Then, when he said,
QuoteIf your goal is to have smooth feeling gears, I'm sure it works very nicely. In fact, I'll even agree. In that case, all is well.
, he's also correct.
Just because the word, "lapping" was used in the vernacular sense doesn't take away from the intent and value of what we all understood was meant, even though there may be a more "technically appropriate" phrase for what was done (e.g., wear polishing). I'm sure we're all more interested in the practical and performance related aspects of reel modification/repair than on semantics or appropriate use of words, and Robert did acknowledge that.
Ahem. Although one might think about getting a smooth feeling when cranking to be primarily something related only to self-satisfaction, there is also a lot to be said about it in terms of the more efficient transfer of energy. For example, a reel that has no lube in the gears, bearings/bushings would likely not feel "smooth" and it would be also "harder" to crank. It's harder to crank because of the increased friction between parts, and harder to crank also means more effort by the angler with possibly less enjoyment and/or opportunity to catch the fish. Making things more efficient, including the increase of cranking efficiency also helps increase enjoyment and ability to catch fish. While we may not measure this change objectively, a lot of what we do is purely subjective and increasing smoothness cannot help but also increase our own satisfaction/pleasure in our pursuit, as well as our overall effectiveness/efficiency.
Joel good on ya for having a go, I am sure the amount of material you removed was negligable. To compare what you did to adding sand to your engine was I think a bit extreme and the member who made those comments has come very close in tone to the rubbish that gets kicked around in those other forums. A moderation in tone would be much appreciated. Lets face it the manufacture of reel gears is done the cheapest way a factory can get away with and us still purchase the reel. So in other words perfection it aint. A bit of smoothing IMO will come to no harm. Come on we are all family here we all need to speak to one another with that in mind.
Enough. This has gone far enough and beyond.
What- WHAT- is the problem here?! What here is so difficult to understand?
Read the post, people. If you do not understand, read the post again.
And if you do not understand some of the words or terminology, look them up. Learn them.
Jeezus.
I was asked to explain, and did. Accelerated wear. That's all.
Any inferred derogatory tone or downward spiral of this thread is of your collective perception and contribution. Read it yourself and see. To be honest, it seems as though very few read the posts properly.
Some of the following rationalizations and comments- not leastly the last one- are so seriously out of whack they not warrant reply. Yet, this thread keeps coming up again.
It is very disenheartening.
HOWEVER, and back to the subject at hand, some of you may be surprised to learn that gears are most definitely not cheaply or easily made. Manufacturers can put a great deal of work into proper gear design. Penn for example uses a CNC hobber running a carbide toothed hob, holding tolerances within a few thousandths of an inch. A machine like that is very expensive indeed, and such hobs cost many hundreds if not a thousand bucks apiece. They claim to change hobs weekly.
Abu uses something similar, and includes a crowning parameter in the ten seconds or so it takes to make a pinion. Cal Sheets makes his own gears too, by shaping. Cal Sheets conversions are not cheap. Wonder why.
If some of you are experiencing diffculty with die cast zinc gears in cheap reels, i can't help you. You need to buy better reels.
I gotta go. I'm sitting here down by the water's edge, trying to enjoy an hour of fishing, and i really am becoming convinced that this is a complete waste of my time.
I wonder a few things sometimes though:
I wonder why, having seen the tremendous wealth of knowledge in the responses here, why nobody could answer the OP's original enquiry when he posted it. I also wonder if, during the time this thread has been going, any one of you has even bothered to read or look up things like gears, lapping, gear flanks... And i wonder if anyone has the gumtion to go phone up Penn or Cal or Accurate for instance, and ask them how they feel about using grinding paste on their gears.
I seriously doubt it.
.
Robert, you obviuosly have a wealth of information about gears and machine work. I have often heard of folks doing everything from polishing each gear tooth with hair wheels on a dremmel to simply putting polishing compound oir even toothpaste on the rgears and then running them at high speed to try to improve smoothness of a reels cranking. I have never put much faith in this as my opinion is that once a gear set is worn enough that the cranking feels rough, the gears should be replaced. However, there are times when a new gear set isn't available for some reels. Do have knowlegde of a way to smooth out the wear on slightly worn gears in a way that will make the reel feel smooth again without hurting the reel? This is what the post should be about. He tried something, it might not be right, it might acelerate the wear process, but what can we do if we can't get new gears?
Robert you call Penn for me and tell them the quality control from china sucks,I cut my finger the other day on there perfectly formed quality controlled gears,but it's ok I took sandpaper to them and now there fine. ;D
There is a man who is about as decorated at long-range shooting as anyone could ever hope to be- his name is David Tubb. David now has some pretty decent products out there from complete rifles to gunsmithing goodies http://www.davidtubb.com/
One of his products is Final Finish. This is basically 50 unloaded bullets in the caliber of your need. 10 bullets each coated in lapping compound, from coarse to fine. You load these yourself, fire them through your old or new gun starting with larger grit and finishing with the finest - stopping to clean between each grit. Not exactly a new concept- smiths have been doing this by hand for centuries- even with top-shelf custom barrels. The idea is to erase the imperfections left behind by the tooling. As the tooling gets worn from cutting the same deal over/over- it gets pretty rough and leaves scars.
When Final Finish came out - the "Experts" were up in arms over this deal. They howled at whoever would listen -"DO NOT USE THIS IN YOUR RIFLES- IT WILL WIPE THE RIFLING RIGHT OUT" "ACCELERATED WEAR, TAKES MANY THOUSANDS OF ROUNDS OF LIFE FROM YOUR RIFLE!!!" but when asked, none had ever used it. But soon enough this stuff was known to be bad for your guns- had a bad reputation built by those who never even tried it because they knew better and did not want to ruin their hi-dollar barrels.
I had a $200 Savage 22-250 varminter that I bought at a show. I did a trigger job on it and bedded the stock, re-cut the crown and still could not get it to shoot better than 2" at 100yds. So I had a box of this Final Finish that was given to me- so what the heck, gave it a run. First thing I noticed after use was that cleaning patches ran through barrel extremely easily vs before- this actually worried me. I set rifle up on a bench and sent five rounds down range that were all touching at 100yds. About as good as you can hope for. I was amazed. I used the product in a .22 rifle I had, and also a 300wsm, all showed improvements but none as much as that 22-250, not even close. But they are all easier to clean and you can shoot more shots between cleaning before fouling becomes a problem. I have put 3k rounds through that 22-250 since (notorious barrel burners) and I have yet to notice any signs of accuracy falling off. I have used this product now on many a rifle, have not always achieved better accuracy, but have yet to ruin any barrels with it. I have friends that decided to try it- all their friends tried it- not one bad word to be said about the product from anyone who has actually used it.
Yet still, to his day if you mention Final Finish on any smithing forum- there will be many an "expert" to come out against it- and you can ask every one of them if they have used it same answers "no but I know a guy who did....." or just "no, I would never do that to one of my guns"
I am guessing that "lapping" these gears with similar compounds is not much difference. You can scratch a dry gear with your fingernail and feel roughness left by the tooling. I really don't think that these compounds are coarse enough- the resistance strong enough- nor the amount of time being lapped long enough to do anything short of smoothing down these tooling marks. I think you'd really have to be determined to actually reduce the useful lifetime of one of these gears.
If there is a better way to quiet these stainless gears and smooth them out- I would love to try it.
If it turns out that I screwed something up- you can bet I will post about here
My one concern so far is that polishing with McGuires left them too smooth- now does not hold onto the grease (Cals and blue Penn) as well as rough gears do. I have yet to try it with stiffer grease. If anyone can recommend a grease that would be great.
It appears we've explored this particular topic as fully as we might at this point.
Further ideas or contributions on similar topics could perhaps be posted as new topics/threads.
Thanks for everyone's input - it's no doubt all sincerely meant.
All the best, Justin