Teamed up with my very good friend and soon to be founder of OCTO Engineering

[TheReelShop]

So I've been doing reel repair for about 3 years now as a side gig and about 6-8 months of rod repair also. My friend is a recent graduate from mechanical engineer ~1 year. This guy is really good on the drawing board and for lack of better words to describe him, he's a bad ####. Around the beginning of this year he managed to complete and build his own CNC. I told him that we could try and cut out some reel drags, since doing it on my own was becoming very difficult to produce especially without proper equipment. Aside from just round drags some reels have more complex drag washers with regard to shape. So we teamed up after I got his interest.

So far we've cut out for a TLD25, Tyrnos 8 10, and a Calcutta 150. Now working on a TLD 15. I've already repaired some reels with our cut drags and so far we've been pleased with our results. Here is a few pictures of the work. Don't know what is in plan for the future but its a start.





HERE IS A CALCUTTA 150 ORIGINAL NEXT TO OURS




TYRNOS CAME APPARENTLY WITH SOME DRAGS DEFECTIVE. WEAVE PATTERNS ARE DIFFERENT AND I DONT KNOW WHOM THEY SOURCED IT FROM



OURS





TLD25





HERE IS A SHORT CLIP OF OUR WORK

[Gfish]

"DUDE!"
Will you be producing drag discs, etc. for sale?

[TheReelShop]

Yes most likely. One of our goals among others,  is to be able to reproduce for any reel out there. We want to try and tailor individual requests. Maybe some insight on here can maybe lead us somewhere. We have in line to manage the old school Penn internationals for example since they are hard to come by and are discontinued. Those will require us to probably fab up complete drag plates but we'll see when we get there. Thanks!!

[steelfish]

nice..

looking forward for more of your work

[Ron Jones]

What materials can his CNC handle? It would be great is it could cut stainless, but the motor used doesn't look really powerful or rigid. Believe me, we're happy you're around.
Ron Jones

[Bryan Young]

I believe SmoothDrag already have those washers already cut.  It may be great for your to cut washers for yourself, but for others, it may not be cost effective unless you are cutting multiple sheets at a time.  Just stating from the business perspective, of course.

regarding cutting drag washers that are not readily available, you will need to source drag washers in 1.5, 1.75, 2 and 3 mm thick or glue them up for those thicknesses, such as the discontinued floating international drag washers, ProGear (non-Penn gut ones), and a few others.  That would be great to see.

[TheReelShop]

I believe SmoothDrag already have those washers already cut.  It may be great for your to cut washers for yourself, but for others, it may not be cost effective unless you are cutting multiple sheets at a time.  Just stating from the business perspective, of course.

regarding cutting drag washers that are not readily available, you will need to source drag washers in 1.5, 1.75, 2 and 3 mm thick or glue them up for those thicknesses, such as the discontinued floating international drag washers, ProGear (non-Penn gut ones), and a few others.  That would be great to see.

Yes they do, actually for a a lot of reels. We do plan on building/work on obtaining alternate machines. The idea is to have the capability to produce a part. Reels that have discontinued parts for example.

With regard to the floating drag plates, are you referring to these?

[jurelometer]

Good on your friend for assembling his own CNC router!

If you plan to do more routing of carbon fiber,  you might want to read up on machining carbon fiber. There are issues with anything electrical getting fried (carbon dust is conductive), and coating the insides of your lungs.    The dust sticks to everything(electrostatic?),  making it difficult to clean up your shop, so the risks remain after the cutting has been completed.

This safety stuff gets  more important once you plan to make a business out of it, as opposed to an occasional foray.  Some health hazards are cumulative  and will  sneak up on you.   Once you feel symptoms...

I have not had training on machining carbon fiber safely, but though that I should share what I have found so far in case there are some safety issues that you might want to look into.  I won't cut the stuff on a CNC router, even if my local shop would let me (it won't).

What materials can his CNC handle? It would be great is it could cut stainless, but the motor used doesn't look really powerful or rigid. Believe me, we're happy you're around.
Ron Jones

Never head of a CNC router  (spindle, carriage and frame) that could handle stainless.  Add enough weight and rigidity to the system to cut steel, and it ends up being a milling machine.    CNC routers are used when the material is easier to cut, you want a cheaper machine, and/or  when you want a huge XY envelope (like big enough to hold a whole sheet of plywood).  There have been folks that have tried to build super rigid small CNC routers that can cut metal parts, but I think it is pretty much limited to soft metals and low accuracy situations.

-J

[happyhooker]

Good luck on your endeavour.

Frank

[Bryan Young]

I believe SmoothDrag already have those washers already cut.  It may be great for your to cut washers for yourself, but for others, it may not be cost effective unless you are cutting multiple sheets at a time.  Just stating from the business perspective, of course.

regarding cutting drag washers that are not readily available, you will need to source drag washers in 1.5, 1.75, 2 and 3 mm thick or glue them up for those thicknesses, such as the discontinued floating international drag washers, ProGear (non-Penn gut ones), and a few others.  That would be great to see.

Yes they do, actually for a a lot of reels. We do plan on building/work on obtaining alternate machines. The idea is to have the capability to produce a part. Reels that have discontinued parts for example.

With regard to the floating drag plates, are you referring to these?

Exactly.  I think they were 3 mm thick if I recall.

[swill88]

Congrats and thank you!

Is that a Bosch or Makita trim router?

Would love to see more of the CNC mechanics if you dont mind.

Steve

[TheReelShop]

Good on your friend for assembling his own CNC router!

If you plan to do more routing of carbon fiber,  you might want to read up on machining carbon fiber. There are issues with anything electrical getting fried (carbon dust is conductive), and coating the insides of your lungs.    The dust sticks to everything(electrostatic?),  making it difficult to clean up your shop, so the risks remain after the cutting has been completed.

This safety stuff gets  more important once you plan to make a business out of it, as opposed to an occasional foray.  Some health hazards are cumulative  and will  sneak up on you.   Once you feel symptoms...

I have not had training on machining carbon fiber safely, but though that I should share what I have found so far in case there are some safety issues that you might want to look into.  I won't cut the stuff on a CNC router, even if my local shop would let me (it won't).

What materials can his CNC handle? It would be great is it could cut stainless, but the motor used doesn't look really powerful or rigid. Believe me, we're happy you're around.
Ron Jones

Never head of a CNC router  (spindle, carriage and frame) that could handle stainless.  Add enough weight and rigidity to the system to cut steel, and it ends up being a milling machine.    CNC routers are used when the material is easier to cut, you want a cheaper machine, and/or  when you want a huge XY envelope (like big enough to hold a whole sheet of plywood).  There have been folks that have tried to build super rigid small CNC routers that can cut metal parts, but I think it is pretty much limited to soft metals and low accuracy situations.

-J

Thank you for the information you provided. Those are concerns we take into account. We'd have to inform ourselves more but at this time although currently we cut utilizing N95 Facial masks.

[TheReelShop]

Congrats and thank you!

Is that a Bosch or Makita trim router?

Would love to see more of the CNC mechanics if you dont mind.

Steve

Hey Steve it's a Makita. Reaches I think up to 35,000rpm

[Alto Mare]

Very cool! Can't wait to see what else you come out with.

I've been in business for over 25 years, I always wanted a partner, but some close friends in the same field always stepped in and mentioned that partners are only good for dancing .
I hope that is not the case here😁
Good luck to you and your partner.

Sal

[TheReelShop]

Very cool! Can't wait to see what else you come out with.

I've been in business for over 25 years, I always wanted a partner, but some close friends in the same field always stepped in and mentioned that partners are only good for dancing .
I hope that is not the case here😁
Good luck to you and your partner.

Sal

Thank You Sal, we'll see where this takes us. I don't think it'll be the case, although we always know it can be a possibility.