Omoto KTB 300 underhead aka "what the heck is this" ..

steelfish · August 31, 2020, 06:47:25 PM

Well, believe it or not, I never put back the reel with the new drags for 5 years

I knew I have that reel pending to put it back but there was always houndreds of things "more importants", well I was cleaning some "never touched for years" boxes of reel parts and found a closed plastic candy jar with parts of a reel, I recognized the parts belonged to this Omoto reel and got in Panic, I didnt remember putting those parts on that plastic jar Yaik!! so, I stopped what I was doing and searched for the rest of the reel, luckily the frame and sideplates and other big parts where exactly where I left them (yep, 5 years ago), now my new plan for the day was to finish that reel for good

since the Jar had the lid closed tight, all the parts were in perfect shape, they were already cleaned and not signs of oxide or corrosion for humidity on them, gooood !!

to tell the truth from time to time I recalled having that reel "pending" because in my Box of the short inventory drag washers, I have a small bag with different thickness of HT-100 and carbontex drags that say Omotto, some of those CF washers were sent by our friend Sal and other ones were custom cut by Dawn of smoothdrag.

so, it was time to start working.

My first move was to meassure the thickness of the Stock drag stack again.

it was 5.88 mm with the stock 3 thick drag washer kit
but only 5.14mm with carbontex 3-drag washers

tried with different thickness of drag washers, HT-100 and carbontex have different thickness, tried different configutations more most of them were too much bigger 6.6mm, 6.25mm but then found a correct sized drag washer that was thinner than the stock HT-100 and used a thinner metal washer of the 309 penn reel I could found (steel ones were aver. 1.2mm and this brass washer was 0.7mm), with those 2 thinner washers the new measure of the drag stack with 4-drag washer kit is now 5.83mm, nice !!

steelfish · August 31, 2020, 06:59:53 PM

there you have it, the stock drag stack on the top and the HT-100 drags and parts for the New drag stack with a Derlin washer under the maingear on the bottom of the 1st pic.

I had some hard time putting back the reel, the antireverse dog was really tricky to put it back, nothing related to any other reel I had fixed before, but found a way to put it and the rest was easy, just the good old alantani treatment with yamaha grease on metal parts and tsi321 oil on bearings.

I just tossed a good amount of grease on the section where the big underhead reelfoot is attached to the reel to protect the aluminium from the salt, as well as the graphite reelfoot that meets the frame and more grease to the long screws of the reelfoot

steelfish · August 31, 2020, 07:13:05 PM

and with that, it was pretty much done, I put one abu Garcia handle for a moment but is not perfect fit, the width of the handle hole on the abu hande is perfect but the leght of the hole is like 1/16 larger, I still cannot use this reel until finding a better fit handle for it.

I still need a bigger handle with a smaller shaft hole, I have seen some old okuma reels handle blades that might work or that require minimun modification like the one for the okuma convector or for cedros but not positive on the size of those handle holes.

steelfish · September 22, 2020, 05:34:41 PM

now its officially finished !!

I was able to find the perfect fit handle for the reel, it was an Okuma handle for the magda pro reel, not more play on the drive shaf and hole on the handle!
now, the hard part, finding time to test it with the new drags.

Just for you to know, the delrin washer for under the main gear was sent by our friend Sal, 5 years ago when I started to work on the reel, he also sent me some different thickness CF washers, I was able to find a perfect combination of metal washers and CF washers for a new 4+1 drag stack because of the different sizes I had, thanks again Sal, a true gentleman, you can check my reply #30 from aug 31, 2020

Quote from: Alto Mare on July 02, 2015, 01:01:50 AM
I usually cut my own washers and what you're having would never be an issue for me, I have many different CF thickness and don't mind mixing them up.
In your case, I see a good opportunity for a Delrin washer on top. Oh, make sure you put one under the gear as well

Quote from: Alto Mare on July 02, 2015, 01:26:07 AM
Dawn has some, but if you can't get them, pm me your address and I'll put them in the mail.

oc1 · September 22, 2020, 08:24:13 PM

It's best to not rush into things

-s

whalebreath · September 23, 2020, 04:51:03 AM

About 15 years ago a very similar unit was being sold here in Canada by the Walker downrigger company they even used the 300 Model name.

steelfish · September 23, 2020, 07:17:41 PM

now thats cool !! nice, thanks por posting it.

thats the same reel with different name and Lefty.

after a quick search on the web under that name and brand seems that you can still find the reel and buy one, problem will be the replacement parts.

SteveL · November 24, 2020, 07:01:18 PM

I actually found and bought one of these Omoto KTB 300 reels on ebay a few years ago after searching for quite some time. Still haven't got a chance to use it though.

oc1 · November 25, 2020, 04:04:35 AM

Looking at those and trying imagine what it would be like to use one, is seems like cranking would feel more natural with your left hand..... just like spinners. It's weird how that is.
-steve

ExcessiveAngler · August 10, 2023, 02:07:55 AM

You know! you come up with some really cool stuff sometimes!
You left some links in another thread, and brought me to this somehow lol!
So do you still have this now?
Can't just leave the book open, without hearing the rest of the story!
I saw some of them in the past,
and quite intriguing that particular one is made by the Omoto company, though!

jtwill98 · August 10, 2023, 02:41:24 AM

There's one on ebay, perhaps you can send the seller a note and request a copy of the paperwork. The box has some more information about the reel.

ExcessiveAngler · August 10, 2023, 03:55:26 AM

Quote from: jtwill98 on August 10, 2023, 02:41:24 AMThere's one on ebay, perhaps you can send the seller a note and request a copy of the paperwork. The box has some more information about the reel.

Or he could buy it and have two of them lol!
I really want to buy that in the worst way! Just so I can look and play with it lol!
Was trying to see if maybe it would be fun as a true caster, but I don't see any way to do that, the way it's set up!
I think you'd have to put a mag on that sucker, and set it and forget it, if you wanted to cast it lol!
I swear, I see something new and neat, on this site every day!

steelfish · August 10, 2023, 03:55:24 PM

Quote from: ExcessiveAngler on August 10, 2023, 02:07:55 AMYou know! you come up with some really cool stuff sometimes!
You left some links in another thread, and brought me to this somehow lol!
So do you still have this now?
Can't just leave the book open, without hearing the rest of the story!
I saw some of them in the past,
and quite intriguing that particular one is made by the Omoto company, though!

you know, I just noticed I put the wrong link to the other thread about the daiwa 6H
the correct link is this one https://alantani.com/index.php/topic,27618.0.html
thats how I got the ted williams reel which is a copycat of the daiwa millonaire