Reel Repair by Alan Tani

Conventional and Bait Casting Reel Rebuild Tutorials and Questions => Penn Tutorials and Questions => Topic started by: M105580 on November 04, 2022, 02:30:17 AM

Title: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: M105580 on November 04, 2022, 02:30:17 AM
I have an old Penn 209 I enjoy salmon trolling with, and it's time for some well deserved maintenance and upgrades.

I put in carbon drag washers a few years ago. Now I want to modify the drag so the application is more gradual over the entire range of star travel. Right now, it is not quite one full turn of the star to go from zero drag to locked up. And the drag curve really ramps up at the end.

Is there a way to modify the drag stack, or the spacer, to make the drag curve more gradual from like 2-5 pounds of drag?

I feel like additional wavy washers in the stack, or under the spacer, would achieve what I want. But I would appreciate feedback.
Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: Squidder Bidder on November 04, 2022, 04:16:01 AM
I think this is the point of the ss fine thread gear sleeves with matching drag stars - a more gradual ramp up in drag pressure with the turn of the star. You might also want to invest in Bryan's ultimate upgrade drag stacks if you're going this route.
Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: M105580 on November 04, 2022, 04:34:57 AM
What are these fine thread gear sleeves you speak of? That would seem to do the trick. But I feel like a few bellvilles ()() under a shorter sleeve might also suffice.

Anyways, to answer my own question I saw that mystic parts has the stainless gear sleeves that are fine threaded.
Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: Brewcrafter on November 04, 2022, 05:42:42 AM
Keep in mind that probably the main driver of The Boss swapping out to a SS gear sleeve (fine or course thread) is that you gain resistance to "rounding off" the squared up end of the sleeve where the handle is affixed as opposed to the stock brass part - this is a notorious "weak spot".  Also I might be overstating the obvious but with your CF drags, they have been lightly greased with a quality lubricant like Cal's, right?  Allows even startup and overall smoother drag, and may help with that sharp "ramp up" that you are seeing at the end of the drag range.  Sounds like you are on the right track with this old reel. - john
Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: M105580 on November 04, 2022, 06:02:06 AM
So I actually have two of these, and just tore them both down to clean them up before ordering parts.

The older one has a metal idler gear, so I imagine it's pretty old. But it needs new drags and is missing the washer beneath the main gear. I'm not sure what the drag washers are made of, but they are pretty thin and flexible.

The newer reel has carbon drags and stainless washers. I cleaned them well and applied cals grease.

 The star has five prongs on it. From fully backed off to drag locked, you rotate 4/5 of a revolution. In the final 1/5 turn, you go from under 2 lbs of drag to over 10.
Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: alantani on November 04, 2022, 06:17:55 AM
i don't suppose that there is any chance that you are in the san jose area.....
Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: Keta on November 04, 2022, 02:16:36 PM
 Replacing the wavy washer with a Bellville  washer will help a little.
Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: M105580 on November 04, 2022, 03:58:59 PM
Quote from: alantani on November 04, 2022, 06:17:55 AMi don't suppose that there is any chance that you are in the san jose area.....

Hi Alan, I'm actually up in Anacortes, WA.

I made pretty quick work of my TLD 25s with the kits you just sent me, and serviced my two Avets with your tutorials. So figured I'd keep on working thru reels, and would finally get around to joining this forum...
Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: alantani on November 04, 2022, 04:11:59 PM
bo, with star drag reels, they are sort of "set and forget."  it's not as common to have to adjust the drag on the fly, but a big fish like a sturgeon would obviously be an example where you might do that.  the coarse thread gear sleeves and stars will obviously ramp up faster than fine thread, but coarse holds up better with less wear and tear.  i think what would be most helpful is a fresh set of HT-100's inside the main gear that have been liberally greased. 

also helpful would be a carbon fiber drag washer under the main gear.  the single thickness HT-100's like the #6-60's will get worn down quickly. the double thick fiberglass core ht-100's like the #6-113's are too thick and the main gear can get wedged against the side plate.  what i use is a washer from smoothdrag.com. 

hope this helps. 

Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: Ron Jones on November 04, 2022, 07:18:40 PM
I am slowly but surely replacing all of my gear sleeves with fine thread, for the reasons you have mentioned. I find that it is better to adjust the drag to little than too much while fighting a fish.

I'm not saying the Boss isn't correct, if he recommends starting with new HT-100s, then that is where I'd start.

The Man
Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: M105580 on November 04, 2022, 09:54:13 PM
Thanks everyone for the input so far. I think Alan has a very good point in starting with a rebuild of the drags. This will put things in a known good condition, and then in can make adjustments from there. Realistically, these reels are seventh and eighth in the batting order, and are kept mainly for sentimental reasons. So not sure the stainless gear sleeves will happen.

In the realm of spitballing I would like to see what the drag curve looks like for these reels. Not so much from a turns of the star standpoint, but compression of the drag stack. A graph of force in drag stack vs drag would be useful to see.

Big flick, I feel like you might be able to replace the spacer sleeve with an appropriate compression washer (or stack of Bellevilles) The star has about an eighth of an inch of travel from fully backed off to touching the side plate.

Attached are a couple of photos. I stacked a second sleeve on top of the first, and then manually loaded the drag. Obviously this would be better with a load cell in an Instron machine...

Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: Ron Jones on November 04, 2022, 11:15:10 PM
Great,
Have you produced the graph yet?
The Man
Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: M105580 on November 04, 2022, 11:30:25 PM
No graphs yet. I'm going to rebuild both drags first. But over thanksgiving I should be able to knock it out. I'll probably make a wooden cradle, use a digital scale from Amazon, and put it all in a vise. I also need a drag scale.

But based on what I saw earlier, I had 23 pounds applied to the stack for probably two pounds of drag.

So a spring that develops an 80 pound load over about an eighth of an inch of deflection would be the ticket (roughly). Smalley seems to have a number of springs that would be suitable, although they might need to be stacked.

As an aside, I imagine the original leather drag washers penn used were a little more spongy, which is basically what I'm trying to achieve.
Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: M105580 on November 05, 2022, 05:07:20 PM
So these three photos explain the genesis of what I'm trying to do here, and where I'd like to end up. While the reels develop smooth fishable drag, the "user interface" with the star could use improvement. There's not enough rotation/travel of the star for my liking at the range of drag where I want to fish (4-6 lbs). I think this is a function of the stiffness of the drag stack, combined with the pitch of the gear sleeve threads.

I would like to develop the curve of drag stack compression vs drag. Once that is known,  I suspect I can find a spring of permissible geometry and load characteristics that I can install, (likely instead of the spacer). McMaster Carr has a number of stacked wave disc springs that appear useful at first glance.

Thanks again to everyone who is providing input and advice.
Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: jurelometer on November 05, 2022, 07:51:52 PM
My apologies if you know this stuff already, but sliding friction is a function of the coefficient of friction multiplied by the force pressing the surfaces together.  So you need to get your  drag and metal washer selection and prep plus lube plus undergear setup (which acts a a thrust bearing) squared away first, as this will all effect the coefficient of friction which can change your results dramatically.

As we discussed on another thread recently, spring deflection to load is not linear.  The same thing happens with the threads when tightening a nut (or in this case a star) which is also a spring of sorts,  and the other elastic components that constitute the rest of the drag stack will behave the same way.

So the system will never be linear, the best you can do is increase the amount of rotation required in the clamping load range that you care about. Which can also be done by switching to a sleeve and star with finer threads.

Am curious why a wave spring would be better than stacking bellevilles.  Not much compressive load available in wave spring stack of this diameter.  I would guess that you will have to stack bellevilles to get the load that you are looking for.

And getting to a more impertinent (and unpopular) point, I do not see the benefit in this level of fine tuning of drags (heresey, I know :) )

As the effective line diameter on the spool changes as line goes in and out, and as the water applies force along and more importantly across the line (due to current, boat drift, fish swimming around etc.) the actual load required to spin the drag is going to constantly be changing quite a bit -especially from the fishes end of the line.  That is why the rule of thumb drag settings are generally in the 1/4 to 1/3 of stated line test.  It seems somewhat futile to me to tune the stack so that I can choose to set the drag either at 4 or 4.2 lbs, for example.  That difference turns out to be "noise" with everything else going on.

I am with Alan in terms of focusing on getting a smooth drag setup and minimizing the difference between static and dynamic coefficient of friction.  Drag lube, carbon fiber washers, flattened smooth metal washers, undergear setup, etc.  All that boring stuff.

Hope this helps,
-J
Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: Gfish on November 05, 2022, 09:56:49 PM
COOL!
In figure 1 "drag star increments", that's point to point on the star, right?
Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: M105580 on November 05, 2022, 10:18:50 PM
Quote from: Gfish on November 05, 2022, 09:56:49 PMCOOL!
In figure 1 "drag star increments", that's point to point on the star, right?

That's exactly it. Going from the drag fully backed off with a star point centered under the handle, to then tightening the drag so the next point is indexed under the handle. Or alternatively 72 degrees of rotation.
Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: M105580 on November 07, 2022, 04:19:23 AM
So as a quick update, I've got parts on order to rebuild both drag stacks. I'll try both a drag washer and a fiber washer beneath main gear, but expect I'll prefer the drag washer.

In the interim, thru the magic of Amazon, I was able to rig up a quick bench test of the reel, comparing compressive load on the drag stack to developed drag on the reel.

Measuring drag off the reel, 60 pounds of developed force is sufficient for my fishing. This is about 5 pounds of drag.

Taking measurements of the reel, I'm looking for a spring with an OD of 0.5", ID of 0.4", and perhaps a max height of .75". The load rate would be 480lb/in.


Unfortunately, I don't think I'll find that spring. However, this one looks promising:

Smalley Wavo Spring (https://www.smalley.com/wave-spring/rw-0050)

It's small, fits on the gear sleeve, and deflects 0.01 in at a 35 lb. Put two of them under the spacer and that's 70 lb of load over 0.02 in. Star travels at 24 tpi, so that's half a turn to apply 70 lbf. At any rate I think it should be improvement.
Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: Shellbelly on November 07, 2022, 04:06:32 PM
Quote from: M105580 on November 07, 2022, 04:19:23 AMMeasuring drag off the reel, 60 pounds of developed force is sufficient for my fishing. This is about 5 pounds of drag.
Question from the cheap seats here.  The 209 has 3 variable adjustments that can affect spool rotation.  In this measuring exercise, how would you account for all these in the aggregate? 

It seems you would have to set up the test reel to a fixed level wind/casting tension which is typically based on the weight of terminal tackle, which can be widely variable in the field.

If you are not casting the reel, then I fully understand your approach.
Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: M105580 on November 07, 2022, 05:19:15 PM
Quote from: Shellbelly on November 07, 2022, 04:06:32 PM
Quote from: M105580 on November 07, 2022, 04:19:23 AMMeasuring drag off the reel, 60 pounds of developed force is sufficient for my fishing. This is about 5 pounds of drag.
Question from the cheap seats here.  The 209 has 3 variable adjustments that can affect spool rotation.  In this measuring exercise, how would you account for all these in the aggregate? 

It seems you would have to set up the test reel to a fixed level wind/casting tension which is typically based on the weight of terminal tackle, which can be widely variable in the field.

If you are not casting the reel, then I fully understand your approach.

These are salmon trolling reels, so casting isn't a concern.

As an aside, Smalley was considerate enough to ship out a pair of Wavo washers. Hopefully I'll have all parts on hand in the next few days, and will be able to make a final report.
Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: M105580 on November 08, 2022, 03:39:43 AM
So parts are on order to rebuild the drag stacks, and a couple of super-whamodyne springs are in the mail. But I still decided to take a trip to the hardware store.

Jurelometer astutely mentioned the threaded fastener nature of the star assembly a couple posts back. I imagine this has been discussed ad naseum on this forum. What is enlightening though is to consider effect of friction in a threaded fastener assembly.

50% of the torque is used to overcome under thread friction. As such, minimizing under thread friction is good. The star bearing directly on the metal spacer is less than ideal, given metal on metal contact, and concentrated loading.

At the hardware store I purchased a 34 cent 10mm mylar washer, and put it under the star. It was a noticeable improvement. PTFE would be better, but not bad for the cost of a stamp.

Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: Ron Jones on November 08, 2022, 05:01:42 AM
This has been fun to watch. Can't wait for all your parts to come in. 5#s of drag plus the rod should be fine, but I'd think you can get a little better if needed.

The Man
Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: M105580 on November 08, 2022, 04:06:45 PM
Quote from: Ron Jones on November 08, 2022, 05:01:42 AMThis has been fun to watch. Can't wait for all your parts to come in. 5#s of drag plus the rod should be fine, but I'd think you can get a little better if needed.

The Man

I'm happy to see a few other people are following this thread. While modifying an 209 probably isn't most folks' cup of tea, I think there I've stumbled upon a couple of things that might be of more general applicability.

As an aside, did you spend time in the submarine force?
Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: Shellbelly on November 08, 2022, 06:59:15 PM
Quote from: M105580 on November 08, 2022, 04:06:45 PMWhile modifying an 209 probably isn't most folks' cup of tea,
True.  These reels generally don't get as much attention even though they're still popular workhorses.  I'm staying plugged in for your bench data and field results.  I use 209 & 309 for the surf and haven't considered any modifications so this is of particular interest to me.
Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: jurelometer on November 08, 2022, 07:43:29 PM
On the star and minimizing torque:

I don't think that the friction for turning the star is related to the problem you are trying to solve of increasing the ratio of rotation (i.e, axial travel) to clamping load. 

More friction  just means  more torque to get the same clamping force.  But clamping force is going to be a function of travel. Just takes more or less effort to get the travel.  BTW,  greasing the threads will also greatly improve the torque to clamping force ratio.

if you still want to stick any plastic washer between the the star and the spacer, you will need to address scoring, creep and heat resistance.

Scoring can be addressed by placing a thin flat metal washer on each side.  Creep (squishing in this case) and heat  is adressed by material selection.

Here is how we addressed the use of plastics in the drag stack in the past:

It is popular here to use Delrin (acetal) for an under gear washer and/or for a friction washer above the last (eared) metal washer on  many star drag stacks.  This makes for a smoother drag. Acetal has a coefficient of friction approaching Teflon (PTFE), but has the added benefit of resisting creep - so it makes a good thrust bearing. It starts getting soft somewhere shy of 200F, s  not ideal for more extreme drag usage, but many folk here use it without issue.  PTFE has a much higher operating temperature, but deforms readilyunder compression, so the next step up is Rulon, which is a fiber filled PTFE product often used for solid bearings. Rulon is more expensive, and harder to cut, so most folks stuck with acetal.

But I would personally would not try to minimize torque to clamping load conversion.  A bit of extra resistance is useful for holding the setting at lower drag, otherwise you can change the drag just by bumping the star.

Not just taking shots from the cheap seats here.  Just sharing a bit of what we have learned.  It is good  that you are following the scientific method.  I expect to learn some new stuff from your experiments.

-J
Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: jurelometer on November 08, 2022, 08:26:49 PM
On the springs:

Hopefully the waves get you what you need, but if they don't:

That one turn wave spring is made from 1/32 round wire.  That takes some serious temper to get 35 lbs of clamping load out of three humps! Which brings me back to another point that I think that we hit on earlier.

For just about any spring, the travel to load curve is  pretty much hockey stick shaped.  Once that spring starts loading up well, a small amount of travel causes a lot more clamping load.  If the  goal is to have more overall travel and more linear load ramp-up, the trick is to use a spring that has more travel, and/or a much higher load rating than you need, and operate in low end of the curve. So ideally, you need to look at the load curve chart (but most manufacturers don't seem to share this -aargh), and select the spring that has the travel that you want for the load range that you want.

I am also a fly reel guy, and cork drag fly reels often use an old fashioned  coil spring to achieve a fine tunable load curve. Lots of travel, and the wire gauge controls the ultimate load.   Most use too feeble a spring, but Abel uses a much more beefy spring that works pretty well.

So if two of these wave springs does not get you the travel range that you are looking for, I would consider stacking a couple more, reconsider going to a belleville stack, or even going to a coil.

I don't think that wave springs are stackable without a load bearing washer in between each, which is one reason why bellevilles are nice for ad hoc situations.

It might take a bit of work to find a beefy enough  coil, and it would have to  replace the spacer, which would mean a bit more vulnerability to water, sand, etc., ingress.  It may not be worth it to hunt down that "goldilocks" coil.

-J



Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: Ron Jones on November 08, 2022, 10:21:54 PM
Quote from: M105580 on November 08, 2022, 04:06:45 PMI'm happy to see a few other people are following. While modifying an 209 probably isn't most folks' cup of tea, I think there I've stumbled upon a couple of things that might be of more general applicability.

As an aside, did you spend time in the submarine force?
21.5 years. Retired as an FTC in 18. Last boat was the Bus.

The Man
Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: M105580 on November 09, 2022, 07:04:48 PM
So I've done a fair bit of reading on this site over the past couple of days, and it's been enlightening (and often a bit entertaining) to say the least. It's interesting to see how some practices slowly evolve (under gear washer selection), while others stay pretty fixed. I suspect I'm not the only one here who comes from an engineering background, and that's basically what's driving my interest in understanding the loads and  deflections involved here. Additionally, I've found this site to be tremendously helpful over the years, and I'm hoping that I can perhaps make a modest addition to the corpus of knowledge in this little corner of the internet.

J again astutely mentioned that an under-star plastic washer doesn't do a thing when it comes controlling the deflection/load curve. I agree 100%.  In that vein, my ultimate aim here is to make adjustment of the star more user friendly over the range of drags I typically fish, as opposed to strictly more turns of the star. This is very qualitative, since I don't own a torque wrench, but adjusting the star under load "feels" a lot smoother and nicer with mylar washer underneath.

On Springs:

Adding a spring to the system means it needs to fit somewhere in the drag stack, or potentially in place of the spacer. When the reel is assembled, the star has a maximum amount of travel of 0.1",  develop loads up to 60 lbs, and have an OD/ID of 0.5"/0.4". Stock brass gears sleeves are 24 TPI, or .04" per revolution. As it turns out, this ideal spring has been very hard to find. It don't want to bore out the reel, or machine the gear sleeve, and I don't want to drill out a spring. The wave spring I've mentioned previously will have to do. The load characteristic is fine, although deflection is less than ideal. But it fits like a glove.

Of the off-the-shelf bellvilles I've looked at (McMaster Carr has pretty good information), loads are too high and deflections are too low. Also the ratio of ID/OD typically won't fit in the assembly. It looks like Shimano uses two stacked bellvilles under their star for the Torium-16, and Ambasseduers have a pair of stacked curved washers. So maybe they fit and have better load/deflection characteristics, but I'm not sure they'd fit.

On Bench Testing:
I'm a staunch advocate of bench testing done correctly. That being said, I'm severely limited in that capacity. Salmon fishing I always just set drag by hand. Offshore trolling I set drags straight off the reel with either a gallon of water or 10lb dumbbell. For the first test I tried (drag vs drag stack compression load), I was able to quite precisely apply load to the drag stack using a bar clamp and postal scale. My application of force to the line was not nearly as precise. The reel would tend to wobble a bit (especially at low loads, since the reel wasn't fixed), and the spring scale was awful. So I don't have a curve, but 60 lbs of force was 5 pounds of drag on the scale, which felt about right to my calibrated hand.

Moving forward I anticipate developing star increment vs drag curves for different spring arrangements.

On Plastics:
I picked up a few Mylar washers from Ace Hardware. They are available, cheap, properly sized, and exceptionally THIN (0.01"). I expect that either PTFE or delrin would be my preference. But you gotta dance with the one who brung ya. The Dupont data is below, but these washers are creep resistant, have good thermal performance, and perform adequately under compression. The highest pressures in the drag assembly are the bearing surfaces of the spacer (id/od 10/12mm). Loads shouldn't exceed 2kpsi for the drag range of this reel. Coefficient of friction is 0.3.

All that being said, this is probably a good time to remember the words of Admiral Sergey Gorshokov, and not let perfect be the enemy of good enough.

Proceeding deep.
Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: alantani on November 10, 2022, 03:36:28 AM
you know, it seems like you are putting an awful lot of work into a relatively simple reel.   :-\
Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: oldmanjoe on November 11, 2022, 03:44:53 AM
Quote from: M105580 on November 04, 2022, 02:30:17 AMI have an old Penn 209 I enjoy salmon trolling with, and it's time for some well deserved maintenance and upgrades.

I put in carbon drag washers a few years ago. Now I want to modify the drag so the application is more gradual over the entire range of star travel. Right now, it is not quite one full turn of the star to go from zero drag to locked up. And the drag curve really ramps up at the end.

Is there a way to modify the drag stack, or the spacer, to make the drag curve more gradual from like 2-5 pounds of drag?

I feel like additional wavy washers in the stack, or under the spacer, would achieve what I want. But I would appreciate feedback.
What is count of washers you are working with and what material is the metal washers / finish ?   
Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: handi2 on November 12, 2022, 12:14:05 AM
Too much techno for a simple multiplier reel....
Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: Shellbelly on November 13, 2022, 06:42:02 PM
Quote from: handi2 on November 12, 2022, 12:14:05 AMToo much techno for a simple multiplier reel....
Maybe, probably, but I believe similar thoughts and processes began decades ago with the 99, 140, 500 series reels.  Those are basic multipliers as well and remarkable innovations have evolved for them.

Maybe it's X09's turn for some studying to see if anything can be done for them.  Personally, I'd start with the frame.  You can do all you want with drags, but the frame likes to twist a bit when you get into 20# fish.

Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: Gfish on November 13, 2022, 07:30:30 PM
That's a good idea. Worked on several 309's and 209's and a couple of 210's. The frames could be better to prevent twist. I'd rather replace LW parts than gears.
Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: Shellbelly on November 13, 2022, 10:01:14 PM
Quote from: Gfish on November 13, 2022, 07:30:30 PMThe frames could be better to prevent twist.

Yep.  Level wind versions of Long Beach 66/67 would've been pretty cool. 
Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: jurelometer on November 14, 2022, 01:11:50 AM
Quote from: M105580 on November 09, 2022, 07:04:48 PMI suspect I'm not the only one here who comes from an engineering background.

Actually not too many that post stuff.  A few members used to get a bit hostile over "sciency" posts, but nowadays just the occasional snarky remark or two.

And it seems that there is some interest with the general population. Keith is correct that it doesn't make practical sense to do a mechanical engineering rescue of a 209, but it is a fun exercise for some of us, and helps some other members  to get a deeper understanding of how reels work.

None of this sport fishing stuff is remotely practical anyways...

Quote from: Shellbelly on November 13, 2022, 06:42:02 PM
Quote from: handi2 on November 12, 2022, 12:14:05 AMToo much techno for a simple multiplier reel....

Maybe, probably, but I believe similar thoughts and processes began decades ago with the 99, 140, 500 series reels.  Those are basic multipliers as well and remarkable innovations have evolved for them.

Maybe it's X09's turn for some studying to see if anything can be done for them.  Personally, I'd start with the frame.  You can do all you want with drags, but the frame likes to twist a bit when you get into 20# fish.

You are in luck!  There are a gazillion threads here on this very topic. Mostly in the Jigmaster sub-forum, but  also Senator, and general reel repair.

IMHO, solid frames can really help casting distance on the reels that you mentioned by keeping reel square and the bearings and spindle well aligned.  Especially on wider reels.  But making the frame stiffer only addresses a small part of the problem for improving load capacity. 
 
-J
Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: Shellbelly on November 14, 2022, 05:32:24 PM
Quote from: jurelometer on November 14, 2022, 01:11:50 AMbut it is a fun exercise for some of us, and helps some other members  to get a deeper understanding of how reels work.
Exactly! These subjects are fun and results, while not always as expected, are always interesting.

Bringing a 209 to the bench isn't without merit.  It's a prolific model for many reasons.
Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: Brewcrafter on November 15, 2022, 03:44:33 AM

Quote from: jurelometer on November 14, 2022, 01:11:50 AMbut it is a fun exercise for some of us, and helps some other members  to get a deeper understanding of how reels work.

I agree with Dave - While it may be decades after the fact, the only way ANY of the reels we use today evolved and got better was through the same type of experimentation that we are talking about here.  Folks that had to justify budgets to the Bosses back in the day probably called it "Research & Development"  ;D   There are many examples on this forum of reels that made it to market that either shouldn't have or "could have been better".  I have to also suspect in the dustbins at any of the manufacturers (probably more so in the old days before CAD/CAM) that there were many fascinating reels that were abject failures but "they learned something".  (Boy would those be fun to see!)

Kudos to Alan and those on this site that are not afraid to take the high dollar "latest and greatest" from the top manufacturers brand new out of the box and "mess with them".  Kinda like buying that new factory car under warranty and immediately fabricating a set of exhaust headers for it.
Title: Re: Penn 209 Drag Modification
Post by: JasonGotaProblem on November 15, 2022, 11:58:28 AM
Yeah I almost didn't bother with this thread because this isn't a reel that interests me. But I know how sometimes surprise gems come out of these type discussions, and this one is no different.

I think those with hostility to the more technical posts have learned they can just keep scrolling, there's no need for battle. This forum seems to serve as the external r&d dept for a few modern reel companies. Ideas broached here have made their way to factory floors, to the benefit of the anglers. That starts with folks being nerdy about tackle and talking about it.