The brand and type of grease for use on reels is given way too much significance. The single most important thing is to do regular maintenance and keep things clean and lubricated with something appropriate. The feel of a new reel has little to do with the type(s) of grease used. Shimano bantam drag grease works well on both drags and gears. It’s similar to Cals. Personally, I’ve pretty much settled on marine grease for gears, Cals for drags that require it, gear oil for frame bearings, level wind and sliding parts, Lighting Lube or air tool oil for spool bearings. Tsi321 in tuned reel spool bearings.
Ps: I’m not giving the OP hell, lol. You’re not doing any harm by tinkering and experimenting but I hate to see you or anyone following stress over this.
Delaware Valley Tackle's post in Setup Help was marked as the answer
See the pinned thread by road warrior. Still holds true today
Delaware Valley Tackle's post in Reel seat size was marked as the answer
It depends on the size of your hand what you feel is comfortable. Seats are cheap enough to buy 16mm and 17mm and see which you like better for this rod. Blank diameter doesn’t figure in unless you use an exposed blank seat in which case it’s sized to the diameter where it will sit on the blank
Delaware Valley Tackle's post in Over Lube was marked as the answer
A misconception about grease is that the thickness should be used to “fill” gears to make them feel smoother. In some cases this works short term but it only masks issues. Grease is merely a carrier. The actual lubrication is film thin. The soap or “thickener “ is just meant to keep the infused oil in place from falling out or flinging off. As for the OP, in a fishing reel, painting a film on contacts surfaces suffices in most situations. I use a craft brush trimmed short to be stiff. If the young man wants to contact me directly I don’t mind helping him out.
Even if not the same plant there’s not enough difference to base a decision on. Pick the one that feels, looks best, appeals to you and is best deal. The JM seems a little higher end
You need to evaluate the level of damage. It’s really easy to make a bad matter worse, aesthetically and structurally. It’s hard to patch spots and have them blend in. Permagloss is a urethane finish for rods. It’s hot and sometimes not kind to certain paints.
I’ll happy to help if you’d like. If you decide to go the diy route I’ll answer questions for you. Spinning a gritty or dry bearing under power is a horrible idea.
The only real difference in blanks is the way the company chooses to label them. The inshore mh might be more powerful than the bass mh for example. Inshore guides might be titanium but can be good ss. In rod building we say a blank doesn’t know or care how you build on it. When frogging first caught on I built frog rods on inshore blanks that had lots of backbone but still enough tip to load and cast well. There’s crossover both ways
Delaware Valley Tackle's post in Hand me down was marked as the answer
That can be a jig/plastics, spinner bait , chatter bait, spook, swimbait (within casting weight) rod. Pretty versatile
The metal drag washer is upside down. Install it with the “bump” facing up. The next washer goes on last just before the star. Try that and see what happens
For fresh water applications titanium is overkill, looks cool though. Alconite is best bang for the buck. Plenty hard and pretty light. Using the smallest guides you can get away with saves the most weight.
The Hedgehog and Boca tools are about as good as you'll get even though neither is perfect. It's too much of a niche market to spend a ton on R&D and tooling so I don't expect much better in the immediate future. My recommendation for DIY is to service the bearing right in place. This can be done with a spray blast of carb cleaner or a soak by standing the spool on end with the bearing in a small jar, bottle or tube of solvent.
You can get by with one or the other. In general, casting tackle handles heavier tackle (12#> line) with less hassle. They're just different tools for different circumstances. It's not either/or for me. IMO mastering different types of tackle (casting, spinning, fly and center pin all catch bass for me) is part or the fun and enhances the overall fishing experience.
That blank in an SCIII is rated for 1/16-5/16 casting weight. It will cast the 3/8 a distance but may not be my choice for in close accurate casting. The butt measurement is .4". The taper isn't very fast in the butt of these so depending on the grip length you're probably looking at .35 +/-. You can't really judge power by butt diameter alone due to the differences in materials, wall thickness etc. I've built on the 13' and it lands big steelhead no problem. Kinda off the OP, but FWIW, I built a 4 1/2' rod from the front half of a fly rod blank for a client that fishes the limestone creeks in PA with small spinners and he lands some impressive rainbows and browns.
A redundant A/R (assuming it is indeed redundant) is removable but is a nice feature if adjusted and greased properly. Properly installed you should hardly notice its presence. As mentioned, it's installed upside down in the photo. The long tab is a stopper, the other end is what engages with the ratchet. The brass ears should be adjusted to lightly pinch the ratchet and the gap lightly packed with grease. These steps should all but eliminate any rattle or resistance from the A/R dog.
Delaware Valley Tackle's post in Reel Care was marked as the answer
Some Marine grease works well on gears, Gear oil on level wind, sliding parts and frame bearings and Rem oil / 3in1 for spool bearings are things you may have around the house and are fine for a reel or two. If you want to get into specialty lubes (although there really is no need) Super Lube is a synthetic grease, Ree-X Oil and Rocket Fuel Yellow & Tsi 321 are some popular products. Use only Drag Specific grease on wet drags (Cal's / Shimano).
Delaware Valley Tackle's post in "casting Rods" was marked as the answer
I wasn't sure if maybe the OP was part sarcasm. lol A "casting" rod is just a non-technique specific bait-casting (usually trigger) rod.
A Stradic 2500 picks up 34 IPT. That's as fast as most of the high speed casting reels. An E7 does 30 IPT. What situations are you looking for help in?
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