Reel Repair by Alan Tani

You bet, Jason!

Best, Fred

I ordered sintered bronze 5x11x4 (meant for RC use) and 4x7x2.5 (also meant for an RC car)

I believe my first de-balled (not neutered) reel will be an Abu maxZ reel.

I was thinking about my Calcutta that I use for close surf fishing but frankly that one's doing just great exactly how it is, and I have no desire to change anything about it.

Roller/ball bearings have their place but in my opinion they are over used.  Plain bearings take more abuse and keep working.

Quote from: JasonGotaProblem on September 30, 2024, 01:18:07 PMI ordered sintered bronze 5x11x4 (meant for RC use) and 4x7x2.5 (also meant for an RC car)

I believe my first de-balled (not neutered) reel will be an Abu maxZ reel.

I was thinking about my Calcutta that I use for close surf fishing but frankly that one's doing just great exactly how it is, and I have no desire to change anything about it.

Maybe something to be aware of and possibly play with if you switch to plain bearings for the spool:

Play with the sideplate/foot/spacer fit and see how much you can shift things around, before tightening the screws.  Most reels use screws to screw holes for alignment,  but there is a lot of clearance there.  Not to mention the tolerances of the parts themselves, many of which are forged/stamped from flat stock.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that they had a special alignment fixture used to assemble new reels at the Newell factory.  Joe has a couple posts on his techniques for  aligning old  Penn reels as well.

-J

So I remember you saying that one noteworthy benefit off ball bearings is they better tolerate misalignment. It sounds like you're advising that I check the alignment of the reel frame as I'm installing these bronze bits.

But what are my options if I find a reel is misaligned within ball tolerance but not within bronze tolerance? It sounds like try to shim, or change my plans?

Ball and roller bearings d, they wear out fast.  If the misalignment is small fine lapping compound will fix a plane bearing but when lapping go slow and make sure 100% of the abrasive is removed when done.  A Sharpy works almost as good as Prussian Blue to check contact.

Quote from: JasonGotaProblem on September 30, 2024, 05:27:06 PMSo I remember you saying that one noteworthy benefit off ball bearings is they better tolerate misalignment. It sounds like you're advising that I check the alignment of the reel frame as I'm installing these bronze bits.

But what are my options if I find a reel is misaligned within ball tolerance but not within bronze tolerance? It sounds like try to shim, or change my plans?

The inner race of a ball bearing can ever so slightly shift against the balls to tolerate a misalignment, for example on the drive-shaft of a spinning reel if the hole in the frame and sideplate is not perfectly aligned. With a bronze bearing all you have is the tolerance between the bearing and the hole it sits in, and the axle with the bearing.

  Well my view is you are no longer just assembling a reel .  You have to make the next step up and become a reel smith .  That means that all your parts are measured and fitted to make the reel squared and parallel .   You have to make sure the line bore is true between the plates , before you start lapping the spool and bearings .  This becomes a test of time and patience 

Quote from: oldmanjoe on October 01, 2024, 03:52:10 AMWell my view is you are no longer just assembling a reel .  You have to make the next step up and become a reel smith .  That means that all your parts are measured and fitted to make the reel squared and parallel .   You have to make sure the line bore is true between the plates , before you start lapping the spool and bearings .  This becomes a test of time and patience 

It also depends on how much of a perfectionist one is and how much forgiveness of imperfection one is able to tolerate.   

Quote from: JasonGotaProblem on September 30, 2024, 05:27:06 PMSo I remember you saying that one noteworthy benefit off ball bearings is they better tolerate misalignment. It sounds like you're advising that I check the alignment of the reel frame as I'm installing these bronze bits.

But what are my options if I find a reel is misaligned within ball tolerance but not within bronze tolerance? It sounds like try to shim, or change my plans?

Quote from: Midway Tommy on October 01, 2024, 04:40:26 AM

Quote from: oldmanjoe on October 01, 2024, 03:52:10 AMWell my view is you are no longer just assembling a reel .  You have to make the next step up and become a reel smith .  That means that all your parts are measured and fitted to make the reel squared and parallel .  You have to make sure the line bore is true between the plates , before you start lapping the spool and bearings .  This becomes a test of time and patience 

It also depends on how much of a perfectionist one is and how much forgiveness of imperfection one is able to tolerate.   

I do agree  that if you just take a stock reel and maintain  it properly, you are pretty much in game.

But...

Aligning a conventional (revolving spool) casting reel's spool bearings will affect casting performance and bearing longevity for either type of bearing.   It is a topic that we don't spend much time on, compared to magic lubricants (Ha!) and swapping in fancy ball bearings. Alignment has the potential to affect rolling resistance  much more significantly.

How much a casting improvement we would see from a hypothetical perfectly aligned ABU vs. a typical daily driver is an open question, as is how much plain bearings will affect this equation.

I would personally think more about alignment if I was trying to get the best casting performance (not just distance) for these reels. And I would also think
about it more if I was swapping out ball bearings for plain bearings.

Adjusting plain bearing fit by using an abrasive is essentially ovalling out the holes, so as Lee noted, this should be a minimal last step if used at all, and not a cure for anything but the most minimal of misalignment.

-J

If I was tackling the alignment question,  the first thing I would do is set the spool up in between  a properly  aligned pair of machinist V-blocks and do spin tests(or some sort or rolling resistance test) with ball and plain bearing sets (with the bearings lightly held in place aligned as well), and then compare the results in this ideal situation with the same tests on a fully assembled reel.

[Side note:   If the reel has a non-disengaging level wind, you could also remove a few parts to detach the levelwind and test again to see how much the levelwind is affecting the performance.  If the majority of friction comes from the levelwind, maybe focus your efforts elsewhere.]

These test results would show me if there was an alignment issue worth pursuing, and give me a benchmark to test my modifications against.

Assuming a positive result on the spin test difference, I would first check parts for dimensional and squareness accuracy as Joe has posted elsewhere. I would then mess around with spin testing/and adjusting on assembly.

The final, hardest, and hopefully unnecessary step would be some sort of assembly fixture, which would have to be specific or at least adaptable for different reels.  Blech.  I wouldn definitely not go here until I knew that the potential improvement was there and that the easier options were not sufficient.

-J

Machinist blocks can get pricey .   You can get away with one of these , you may have to modify / make a base plate for the wide spools .

  https://www.amazon.com/Hobby-Fans-Propeller-Helicopter-Multirotor/dp/B09MZFM5HZ/ref=sr_1_3?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.6PgqcOcdixlnu_SaDHdSXBmTVPkhzMhID3GoSAh-1WfvuI9bwTKyqLbepnPg5SXgmfAWrCZnAT4TwGBUn1cu__SE35AAZVR-c6dHqSg70pSFi-Q02FSVPkD-ER-PS0N1t8-xqxI_48m_Q0QrdlSScdTxRul4RZTJtFYNSUMC1hR2iVfxkSuD30WYUNrAaICVebV1a1ME0o26KnkI3F-8KxyvVDWScZcJd24OzZakG2siqBU5wBbTnnIrTev2Ejay9y7meguFjBdz6c6PMSQF9DhbfcEOIUF_JWG2S4INDQ4.YUndxqB7QKgUEXK-9EGLcMGfdIulUos5IhgSNwWDBm0&dib_tag=se&keywords=Propeller+Balancer&qid=1727815625&sr=8-3

Good price for checking a  fishing reel spool/shaft run out.  A dial indicator would help.

I usually trash spools that are not true unless they are hard to find.  My success rate at truing them has been low.

Quote from: oldmanjoe on October 01, 2024, 09:16:33 PMMachinist blocks can get pricey .  You can get away with one of these , you may have to modify / make a base plate for the wide spools .

  https://www.amazon.com/Hobby-Fans-Propeller-Helicopter-Multirotor/dp/B09MZFM5HZ/ref=sr_1_3?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.6PgqcOcdixlnu_SaDHdSXBmTVPkhzMhID3GoSAh-1WfvuI9bwTKyqLbepnPg5SXgmfAWrCZnAT4TwGBUn1cu__SE35AAZVR-c6dHqSg70pSFi-Q02FSVPkD-ER-PS0N1t8-xqxI_48m_Q0QrdlSScdTxRul4RZTJtFYNSUMC1hR2iVfxkSuD30WYUNrAaICVebV1a1ME0o26KnkI3F-8KxyvVDWScZcJd24OzZakG2siqBU5wBbTnnIrTev2Ejay9y7meguFjBdz6c6PMSQF9DhbfcEOIUF_JWG2S4INDQ4.YUndxqB7QKgUEXK-9EGLcMGfdIulUos5IhgSNwWDBm0&dib_tag=se&keywords=Propeller+Balancer&qid=1727815625&sr=8-3

Quote from: Keta on October 01, 2024, 11:29:38 PMGood price for checking a  fishing reel spool/shaft run out.  A dial indicator would help.

I usually trash spools that are not true unless they are hard to find.  My success rate at truing them has been low.

I don't think that device is  a match for this problem. It is designed more for observing and adjusting for weight imbalance  in stuff like hobby propellers. 

We need something that is going to hold the bearings in place AND be more accurate than the assembled reel will ever be to find our "ideal", but it doesn't have to be ridiculously accurate.

A couple small v- blocks with "0.0005" squareness are about $18 a pair from Shars, or about $35 if you want the ones with the screw hold that could be used to hold the bearings



Some more inexpensive stuff is involved to align the two V-blocks to each other, but I'm not going to type it all up since nobody here is likely to actually try it.

-J

For our uses it is over kill.  I have a set of V blocks bolted to a piece of 1/2" steel plate and 2 mag base dial indicators I use for checking bent shafts and spools.  If I did not need/use them when I worked I would not have them.