Reel Repair by Alan Tani

When your putting a reel seat on and you remembered to tape the fore grip, don't forget to tape up the top of the seat to! don't ask me how I know

keeping alloy from going dull
after you get alloy nice and clean (fine grit)
wash over with kerosene and it will maintain its lustre.
kero goes into the pores. of the alloy
after awhile to bring it back up wipe over again with kero/rag.

Always grese your reel seat! Just went throught this one

This one may help with the new hex gears. To make a template for the drag washers, take a marker, or use layout fluid to color the top of the gear. Lay the gear flat colored side down on a flat bed scanner. Scan and print the image to a piece of card stock. Cut out the inside and you have a template to cut the outside of the drag washers with.  Bob

Allen head screws tend to round off. I use torx bits to remove these. They seem too "bite" better and don't tend too strip out.
Bob

Very good guys, keep them coming .
Southern Bob, very good tip on cutting the washers, I will use my flour that I've mentioned earlier for making pizza .
I just want to add that those will need to be cut very snug, the angles on the gears are not as sharp as I would have liked them, but that was the machinist limitations....I'm still glad he was willing and able to do these for us.
I will be testing those on a reel that I'm putting together for a friend and yes, I did get mine before you did .
we shall see how they hold up.
Sal

We see who's really getting the "special treatment!"

Looking forward to seeing the old bucket and brick test. BE SAFE!!

I'm learning a lot from you guys, thanks a million!

Sometimes i can't seem to remove some of the screws for the cross posts without them turning while i try to unscrew them like the one in the picture below.



so i have to use pliers to hold them.  To prevent my pliers from damaging the chroming, i cut a couple of pieces of vacuum hoses to wrap over the jaws of the pliers.








Once i get those crusty screws out, i like to soak them with PB Blaster in packages sorted by reels like this.






because it comes out clean and shiny.

hose on the tip of the pliers, great, why didn't i think of that, nice going, we all are going to benefit from that tip.   harryk

Good stuff Dabigono, thanks for sharing. I usually spend $3 on pliers jaws protectors and they don't last very long., I could see yours lasting. You could keep that PB blaster though, that stuff is nasty ....but it gets the job done.
Sal

Sal,

you're definitely right about the PB Blaster, it is some nasty stuff which leads us to the next "tip of the day".

Most of us would agree that we work with toxic chemicals, whether it be PB Blaster or even Cal's drag grease, or TSI lubricant, or even WD40. 

I would highly recommend these -



Because we work with toxic chemicals, we should wear "RUBBERS". 

I know, I know, nobody likes using rubbers because it doesn't feel 'natural'.  But my dad always said that it helps to prevent things that we don't want to happen from happening.

Rubbers can help to prevent toxic chemical absorption through the skin.

I hope all of us are practicing safe "reel maintenance".

The only problem with using rubbers is that I usually use brake cleaner to clean up all the old cruddy parts before a regrease. The brake cleaner eats them up.
I bought a can of engine degreaser by mistake last time. I didn't even realize it. The cans are the same color. I think it actually works better! It comes out like shaving cream. After it cleans up the parts, the shaving cream factor goes away with all the old crud as well.

here's one if you forgot to grease the plate before screwing the newly cleaned (polished) and lubed bushings (bearings) and you don't want to unscrew the said parts.  

Stainless steel screws for squidders, jigmasters and surfmasters are not easy to find in the proper length for the stand.
Here is a shot of what I'm talking about

using an old stand that you don't care about, makes the job much easier when grinding the small screw down


these are now a perfect fit

Sal