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My attempt in servicing a fishing reel


duck168

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After reading many Slinky's articles on reel servicing and maintenance, I decided that I could do that just as well or better than him. It must be really easy - he took them apart, then put them back and even took photos of them.

On Saturday night, I opened up a cheap reel I bought on the internet. It was a spinning reel called Banax Omega 50H.

I undid all the bolts on side plate but I could not pull it apart from the reel body. The big round gear's bearing was stuck on the handle hole. I applied a bit of pulling force to pull the side plate apart and it did came apart. I checked the round gear and noticed that the protruding part of the gear with bearing(like the axle)had broken at the base. In other words, I broke the round gear with my bare hand.

Anyway, I persisted in disassembling the reel; as all good fishermen would have done. I managed to take the whole reel apart. I held the big round gear (broken) in my hand, admiring this little bit of engineering marvel, you know with teeth and bearing and kind of greasy. I suddenly felt the urge to tap the round gear with the handle of the screw driver that I was holding, and I did. After about 3 gentle taps, the gear broke again. This time it broke at the other protruding part of the gear which also had a bearing on.

I would like to know if a "normal" big round gear is usually constructed more rigid than my example. I would also like to know if gentle tap with a hard object on metal could result in breaking the metal.

Thanks.

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Cheap reels are just that,cheap. The gear that broke would just be a crappy casting which is always going to a lot more brittle than a machined gear which you would find on the higher end reels, not to say that cast gears are all that bad but the cheaper reels are cheap because of the second rate parts that go into them..

Ben

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G'day Duck,

The short answer is no... reel parts shouldn't break the way you've described. Unfortunately, bump is spot-on. There's a reason cheap reels are cheap and its usually some combination of poor design, poor engineering, poor quality materials or poor manufacturing.

Even so, cheaper end reels from well known brands are still unlikely to fall apart quite like that. They have reputations and brands to protect. If you'd bought the reel locally I'd suggest taking it back and talking about it. As it was bought from the net you could try contacting the seller or whoever the local Banax distributor is but I wouldn't hold out much hope.

By the way, I've come across unconfirmed rumours of counterfeit reels being sold over the net so if you choose to buy that way, stick with reputable on-line suppliers too.

Cheers, Slinky

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  • 1 month later...

I've been hearing alot about imitation of high end reels being sold over the net. I personally rather spend that bit extra for the comfort of knowing it is a legitimate product and also to support my local business.

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Last Friday I too decided to pull apart my Stradic 2500 and give it a service. Slinky's very informative service and maintenance article gave me the confidence to attempt something I would never do. The end result. Every component of the reel is sitting in an ice cream container. I rang the tackle store and they can send it away to get fixed by Shimano. I estimate I'll get it back for around $100. This particular model has come down in price to around $150. I had a brainwave, purchase a new one pull it apart as I do rebuild the one in the ice cream container. I spoke with my mate. He wisely explained to me that I have trouble opening a weet bix box let alone trying to rebuild the stuffed up reel. He is a good mate. He hurt my feelings and cruelly exposed my inadaquencies. But I am going to save the $100. it will cost me to get Shimano to fix the problem. He reckons he can fix the reel by using the schematic drawings. I showed my mate Slinky's article. My mate reckons any dumb arse should be able to follow Slinkys article but as my informative mate reckons my missus opens up the weet bix box for me. He says I should stick to what I do best SFA. It hasn't turned out to bad at least my reel will be serviced free of charge.

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Bream111 well done mate . I like the part of buying another reel to fix the original reel !!! I service and repair reels/rods for a living in South Africa . I receive many reels in plastic containers , after owners wanted to service their own reel and just could not get it back together . I wish I could charge $100 for a service/repair of a reel . I only get less than $15.00 and then the owners still complain I am to expensive.

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  • 2 months later...

Don't feel too bad bream111.

I had a go at servicing a shimano reel as well. I started to follow slinkys post, but I decided not to place everything carefully to one side and instead of fancy tools I did everything with pliers. I also decided to open the clutch assembly despite advice to the contrary. Apart from those issues, and the idea of using a clean workspace, I followed the advice to the letter. Here is how far I got

post-11562-099903100 1324068823_thumb.jpg

I also used a plastic container to store the parts in. Although the container I chose was much bigger than an ice cream container :)

Edited by myocard
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  • 1 month later...

Just an update.

Got a couple of gears from the local distributor. Good service by the way. Compared them with the shattered ones, they looked like better quality. I subjected them to the knock with a pliers test and they held up good. Been using the reel post surgery a handful of times and so far no drama. Then again I didn't catch any fish either.

Thanks for the feedback.

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  • 1 year later...

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