Reel Repair by Alan Tani

With this group of smart folks who are familiar with the era when reels had bushings instead of of bearings, I would be truly shocked to be the first to ask this question, so I assume it's already been answered:
If the pinion bearing is the weak point on a lever drag reel because of the axial load, would a brass/bronze bushing (aka plain bearing) be an improvement for that component?

Most likely not, plain bearings are not good at dealing with thrust (side loading) .  The cure is bearings designed to handle thrust, and not deep groove bearings. Flanged angular contact hearings is what I would recomend.

To elaborate on Lee's point:

The pinion bearing is being used for both rotational and thrust load. 

You can do the same with the right type of plain bearing, but you will still need a separate  plain bearing surface for it to press against, so two bearings total.

With a pinion ball bearing, the load is on one race (typically the outer), and the resistance on the other (typically the inner).  The balls get pressed towards one side of the track  in each race instead of rolling right down the center.  This is not good for the bearing, but reels don't spend that much time turning, and there is an axial load rating that if you stay under should allow for a decent lifespan.

The advantage with the ball bearing is cramming both the radial and thrust operations in a very small space with less parts.

I am of the belief that you could design a lever drag reel with better thrust management, but retrofitting something on an existing reel is much more difficult.

-J

Regarding angular contact bearings:

Angular contact bearings are a halfway point between a radial bearing and a thrust bearing, so a compromise in both directions.

They are also  designed for high precision assemblies and are less tolerant of misalignment compared to standard deep groove radial ball bearings.  This ability to handle misalignment in standard ball bearings is something that reel designs often take advantage of, because higher precision has higher manufacturing cost.  Most lever drag reels are not super precise in alignment.

This is not to say that  replacing a standard bearing with an angular contact bearing won't help accommodate more load on some lever drags, just that there are tradeoffs to using them in a device not designed with them in mind, including some that may take some time to manifest.

-J

Knew I had to be missing something

Angular contact bearings will work.  Best would be a shoulder on the spool shift, a thrust bearing and a ball bearing.  Penn has thrust bearings on the off handle side on Torque and Fathom lever drag reels but they need another on the handle side.

Good question Jason. I'm not getting the answers at all though. Why wouldn't a single bushing work?

They do not handle sideloading (thrust) well.

Quote from: nelz on February 17, 2025, 04:55:17 AMGood question Jason. I'm not getting the answers at all though. Why wouldn't a single bushing work?

The pinion needs radial (rotational) and axial (along the shaft) load support. Radial for rotation on the shaft and axial for the drag clamping force.  With a ball bearing, you get both (within limits) inside of a single bearing. One race pushes against the balls, which push against the other race.

With a plain bearing (AKA bushing), the bearing slides around the shaft for radial load, but needs an additional flat surface (another plain bearing) to slide against to bear the axial load while rotating.

I would argue that thrust load is not an issue if you use the right type of plain bearing.  For example, what we call a spacer under the main gear in a star drag reel is actually a plain thrust bearing.

It is just easier for the reel designer to put a single ball bearing in, and just use a larger ball bearing if greater thrust loads are needed for higher drag settings. It has just gotten a bit trickier because with modern braid, folks want smaller reels with higher drag settings, leaving less room for a larger pinion bearing relative to the reel size.

-J

My bearings knowledge comes from
40 years of real world experience working in heavy industry and several classes and seminars on bearings. Early steam turbine governors use flanged plain bearings but they are immersed in oil and have minimal thrust.

Standard balls bearings are not designed to take side loading and rapidly fail, deep groove ball bearings (Avet) are a half assed fix.  A flanged plain bearing can handle some thrust but they tend to wear out fast and gauling can be a issue unless immersed in oil.

Star drag reels do not have enough sideloading to worry about, usualy from angular cut gears,  but LD reels put a lot of side load on the pinion bearings. The best cure is two thrust bearings, second best is flanged angular contact bearings.

Penn is half way there with their Fathom and Torque LD reels. All they need to do is make minor changes in the spool shaft and handle side sideplate and add a second thrust bearing.

Penn 55T thrust bearing.

Quote from: Keta on February 17, 2025, 02:20:40 PMMy bearings knowledge comes from
40 years of real world experience working in heavy industry and several classes and seminars on bearings. Early steam turbine governors use flanged plain bearings but they are immersed in oil and have minimal thrust.

Standard balls bearings are not designed to take side loading and rapidly fail, deep groove ball bearings (Avet) are a half assed fix.  A flanged plain bearing can handle some thrust but they tend to wear out fast and gauling can be a issue unless immersed in oil.

Star drag reels do not have enough sideloading to worry about, usualy from angular cut gears,  but LD reels put a lot of side load on the pinion bearings. The best cure is two thrust bearings, second best is flanged angular contact bearings.

Penn is half way there with their Fathom and Torque LD reels. All they need to do is make minor changes in the spool shaft and handle side sideplate and add a second thrust bearing.

From what I have read, deep groove is pretty common for ball bearings.  In other words, if you order a "regular" ball bearing, it is highly likely to be of the deep groove variety.

Agree on the second thrust bearing.  I have always wondered about that. I guess it is trickier to fit one on the sideplate side.

Disagree on the star drag comment.  There is significant side loading on the thrust bearing (AKA under gear washer) on a star drag.  the star forces the main gear against it based on the drag setting.  But there is not much need for a super low coefficient of friction, since the main gear only rotates on the thrust bearing when the drag is slipping.  This means that the thrust bearing only needs to have static and kinetic coefficients of friction that are relatively close to help avoid a sticky drag. That is why Alan likes to use a drag washer for a thrust washer in this situation (I don't).  You end up effectively adding another drag surface to the stack.

But I would agree with a more general claim that the demands are different.  I think that you would have a valid point if you were say that a lever drag needs a thrust bearing with a lower overall coefficient of friction.  This is because the thrust bearing surface pair on the pinion side is  rotating under whatever the drag load is set at whenever the handle is being turned vs. rotating only when drag is being taken- which is the case with a star drag.

Plain thrust bearings can come with pretty high pressure/velocity ratings, so I suspect it is theoretically possible to use them in this situation.  For example a thin Rulon thrust bearing can handle something like 10000 PSI at 100 SFM (surface feet per minute), which comes out at around 500 RPMs on an average diameter of 5/8 in.  Faster than you can wind.  Plus no lubricant needed. 

As to which would be better in terms of balancing  performance/cost/space required, you could very well be right. I have no opinion here.

The question at hand is could you use a plain bearing in place of a ball bearing for a lever drag pinion bearing.  I think we are in agreement on the answer to that: Nope - you would also need a thrust bearing surface pair of some sort. 

-J

The pressure on the ratchet of a star drag is not a issue. How many ratchets on gearsleves have you seen fail not counting stripped teeth?  Zero for me.  How much handle resistance does cranking down a star drag cause? None.  Delron or HT-100/Carbontex underwashers hardly ever fail, if at all, due to thrust.

Outting a side load on a non thrust bearings wear them out quick and do not take a shock load, like dropping a Avet MX 6' with the drag set and on a rod.  This can crack the inter race and/or  dammage the cage. Ihave seen this happen.

MAybe a thick nylon or delrin bushing in place of the bearing?

Worse than a bronze plain bearing.  There is a lot of side pressure being put on the pinion bearings and they would deform.

Thrust isn't a new thing and it has been addressed a long time ago.  There are bearings designed to take sideloading that have been used for over 100 years.

While working at Dell, an engineer was designing hard drive carriers and showed me how a tool he used could calculate stress on the latch mechanism.  This intrigued me and I almost took a job at Ansys because their tool was impressive and they needed a software engineer at the time.

I often read the back-n-forth conversations on this board and wonder to myself, if reel companies have investigated using software tools to help them engineer better designs. 

So I checked online and discovered there is some heavy design engineering with bearings.  If you're interest check out this article - skf-bearing. Interesting enough the article was a blog on the Ansys website.

I haven't ran across an article on reel design .