Reel Repair by Alan Tani

Greetings, Ohana!

Been lurking on the site lately.  I backed off after Sal passed, and later Bryan, but more for personal reasons than as a reaction to the loss. 

This site has invaluably sparked my imagination, and tempted me into spending way too much time and money on fishing tackle (a familiar issue to members!) Thankfully a tough economy and a lull in work activity have forced me to stop buying and start working on things.  The Sealine 300H reel has become the subject of recent infatuation and I own four of them now in various conditions. Many thanks to members for previous postings, especially Porthos and Darrin for the valuable Sealine info. 

I've never seen a post on how to upgrade the handle of a 300H (the same as a 50H) and have plenty of material to start experimenting.  I have three heavy Shimano Triton handles to work with: one with the knob intact and bearing working, one with bearing shaft intact but no knob, and one with a frozen bearing shaft that I drilled out.  My first instinct is to try to convert the blank Shimano blade.

The orignal Sealine handle is 75mm gear shaft center to knob shaft center, and the drilled out Shimano blank is about 78mm center to center.  I've seen the Sealine handles bend, while the Shimano handle is quite a bit heavier, and stainless steel, I believe.

Looking at the gear shaft holes, the oblong hole on the Sealine is 8mm on the short side, while the squared hole on the Shimano is 8.5mm.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the .5mm difference is workable.  In other words, the Shimano hole could be shaped to fit the Sealine shaft. 

The bigger issue seems to be the knob-side shaft fit.  The bearing shaft of the knob that I'd like to use is 5.9mm, while the one that I drilled out is 6.4mm.  This is also a .5mm difference, yet I think it may not be a close enough tolerance.  How can the .5mm be made up?  Some kind of thin hard metal sleeve over the shaft?  Maybe it doesn't need to be very strong metal, maybe a small piece of an aluminum or brass tube would work as a shim?  Can you see the smoke coming from my ears?  Need a quick trip to Home Depot...

hey Decker, in my experience, without a proper machinist / lathe tools to make the "new hole" on the shimano handle (specially the curve on the handle hole) to have a tight fit into the sleeve shaft of the reel will be kinda worthless, why I say that, because if you use manual tools and left some play on the new handle hole with the sleeve shaft you will after some uses the shimano handle hole will be rounded.

I have tried that before on penn reels with the failure as described but of course, you surely are better working with tools than me and could make the new hole pretty much to the exact  measures, so, as a project to save money and keep busy is pretty cool.

Good to see you back on the site Joe. I'm currently trying some soda can aluminum to make up a .5mm difference on a handle cut out to gear sleeve on a Jigmaster. Fished it for the first time a couple weeks on a few 10-15lb red grouper and it held up fine. Plan to keep using it and see. Don't know if that's helpful with your situation, or how much stress your reel may see.

Hey, Alex!  I've screwed up some of these reel handle mods, but my last couple are good.  Takes patience and good judgement, which only come with sufficient punishment for past mistakes. Here is a wasted handle:  https://alantani.com/index.php?action=dlattach;attach=59602;image;thumb

MACflyer, I headed out to find some tubing to use, and ended up buying 1/4" K&S brass tubing from HobbyLobby for about $5.  Fits the blade very well, but I'll have to make a cut to get the knob shaft inside.  On the way home from the store, I actually had the thought of using a soda can .  Aluminum is good shimming material (I recall this from the book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.") When it oxidizes slightly, it expands to tighten the fit. Had I waited for your reply, I could have saved $5 and about an hour of time.

Well, I did manage some progress.  I forgot that I had some aluminum sheeting for the house, and cut a (very) small piece to wrap around the knob shaft end.  The brass tubing hasn't been used so far, but I'll keep it for possible future use. After much trial and error, I jammed the shaft into the blade with the shim (pic 1 below).   

Thinking about this connection, it is not critical that that connection be centered in the hole, only that the shaft and blade be strongly perpendicular, since that side of the shaft will be fixed. As you can see the shaft will need some washers between its flange and the blade (pic 2).  My next job will be to find washers to fill that gap snugly.

In my ADD work ethic, I decided to drill out the knob of one of the stock Daiwa handles.  With patience, some WD40, a Dremel and a drill, I got it very cleanly without touching the chrome. Since I have multiples of the 300H reel, I'll use that blade also (pic 4).

Looks like it should work fine. For me, it's satisfying to modify parts for reuse or repurpose. Plus it saves money.

Quote from: MACflyer on October 24, 2025, 05:16:54 PMLooks like it should work fine. For me, it's satisfying to modify parts for reuse or repurpose. Plus it saves money.

I'm with you there! As a youtube junkie, I liked to watch this guy who was super-resourceful with camping, using common household stuff to make camping gear, and foraging in the woods.  One day he posted a video where he was in a $1000 tent cooking a $50 steak, and I left some very critical comments.  Sponsors must have thrown money at him.  He seems to have taken my comments to heart because he went back to his resourceful self in subsequent videos.  Personally, I find it really difficult to resist running out to the store for my next solution, case in point: the soda-can shimming. I intend to keep trying to change this habit. Youtube has a lot of creativity and innovation, but also pushes a heck of a lot of product.