Grinding down the cam of a penn international 20 VISX

[alantani]

Grinding down the cam of a penn international 20 VISX

ok, so here's the problem.  you want to fish your brand new penn international 20 visx as a 100 pound line class reel.  to me, that means 30 pounds of drag at strike and 50 pounds at full, with a nice, easy, linear progression from free to strike.  you set the drag at full to 50 pounds, no problem.  but where does the lever hit 30 pounds?  yeah just past the bait setting, way at the beginning of the quadrant, barely past the "number 1" mark.  for the reel that you see below, the number 1 setting was actually 26 pounds of drag in the stock configuration.  not really ideal.  changing out the bellevilles is not an option here because the slope of the cam is too steep at the beginning.  so what to do?  it's simple, really.  you have to grind down the cam.  

i've done about 50 of these free hand.  it was an hour long process.  i think i've figured how to make it right, the first time, every time.  drill presses are too slow, so you need a dremel. i have an old model 395 type 5.  



dremel makes a really nice stand, a model 220 work station.  https://www.amazon.com/Dremel-Workstation-Portable-Drilling-Perpendicular/dp/B00068P48O?th=1



dremel makes a 540 cut off wheel and you can use the flat side to grind.  https://us.dremel.com/en_US/products/-/show-product/tools/540-1-1-4-cut-off-wheels-5-pack



and most importantly, you can get a tilting milling table from ebay for $60 to adjust the angle.  



i tried to clamp down the cam but couldn't make it work easily, so i ended up just holding it flat on the table with my left hand while i worked the dremel lever with my right.  i set the milling table to 3 degree, then ground down one side of the cam at a time until the "bait stop" indent was just barely left.  after installing the cam, i checked the drag.  here are the results.  the drag is nearly linear from free to full.  







here is the final product on the left and the original untouched cam on the right.  it's not much of a difference to look at, but it makes a huge difference in the reel.  







3 degrees, gentlemen.  i don't know about any other reels.  all the times before, this has always been done free hand.  it's going to take time to figure out the other reels, even other penns, but it's 3 degrees for the penn 20 visx.  

now to get back to the 150 reels in line in this stupid garage that i have to service.....  

[Ron Jones]

If you only have a backlog of 150 reels your doing good!

The Man

[mo65]

   Great work Alan! I don't think I could live long enough to service 150 reels...HA!

[thorhammer]

What are you doing in the garage at 330 AM???

[Donnyboat]

Thanks for the tip Alan, do you ever sleep, if so I think that brain of yours would still be ticking over, keep well, cheers Don.

[Hardy Boy]

Nice!! Would that work on an okuma like my andros ?? It ramps up really fast also. I'm down to a back log of only 20 or so................ good problem to have.


Cheers:

Todd

[alantani]

the andros ramps up way too fast because the bellevilles are too stiff.  if you change them out, the range will be much more reasonable.  i'll figure out what the are and get you a set. 

[Rocket Dog]

Alan, of the ones you did how many rejects did you have? Thank you for sharing Maestro!

[alantani]

the ones that i cut by hand were all pretty close, so they went back into their reels.  it's just that the profile was not as clean and even as this one.  i'm pretty happy with this.  really nailed it!!!!   

[Hardy Boy]

the andros ramps up way too fast because the bellevilles are too stiff.  if you change them out, the range will be much more reasonable.  i'll figure out what the are and get you a set. 

Thanks for that. that would be great. Other than that it is a nice little reel.


Cheers:

Todd

[CooldadE]

Maybe Penn should read your post ... and do something about it !
It's not like those reels are cheap $$$

Cool

[CooldadE]

Does the MK-20llSEA have a similar issue ?

Cool

[alantani]

no, the makaira is basically fine, straight out of the box. 

[alantani]

The 50 VISW cam was 5 degrees.

[MarkT]

Linear is good!  Accurate should try that!  Does the bait stop still work with that tiny indent?  Can you grind the indent back to how it was?