bulldog1935

and Japan X-braid in the same diameter as 10-lb 832 is 25-lb. breaking strength. OP's question again, best casting result on his B/C From direct experience and measuring results, answer is tightest weave with hardest coating - 832 isn't in the mix - just from filling spools, the average diameter is always greater than reported, suggesting the variance in diameter and coating q/c isn't the same as Japan braid.

Rod bond U40 - I put a split cork back together on a 70-y-o SB rod that continued to fish hard. @PBBrandon I'm going to add a ps here - Rod Bond will keep for 20+ years. It will remain tough and pliable on your rod and will never itself crack - it's made to move with the rod. Selah.

this topic was recently covered

Gee, I was doubling guides' weightless spinning cast using Ambassadeur weightless in the early '80s. They didn't get mad until they slung-off their shrimp trying to beat my cast. I was making a forward-spiral centrifugal cast, which never jerks the bait - they didn't understand how that cast could load the rod, and were trying to instruct me. Don't worry, I made them look good back at the dock. Their job was to get me to the fish.

I've tried 832, YGK, Duel X-wire, Yamatoyo, and Varivas. For baitcaster, tighter weave and harder coating casts better. Out of those, best baitcast and abrasion-resistance is Varivas, and YGK Upgrade and Jigman (Not YGK Castman, which is softer coating for longer spinning cast). Harder coatings yet on Varivas Seabass Si-X and YGK WXP1/ Shimzu, but the price goes way up. I'm with @FishTank and prefer the distance markings, but @Jig Man the same line is offered in high-vis green. Japan X-braid is all made by Izanas, and is the best in the world - they have a spec. committee for it (JAFTMA).

I didn't consider braid before 832 - FEP-coated braids make all the difference - round, abrasion-resistant, slick. However, at the same diameter of 6-lb 832, the finer fibers and tighter weave of Japan X-braid is 16-lb breaking strength. I've caught over 120 species on fly rod. For my money, modern finesse tackle makes fly fishing obsolete for all except moving water. Stillwater fly fishing is largely obstinance, though shooting a Teeny line with only a roll pick-up and single back-cast for line speed can make sense. (the 18" snook is hopping off the table and went back into the channel)

That's why they make Avail and Studio Composite

@F14A-B The bad boy medium-frame JDM size for braid is 3000MHG, Stradic, Vanford, Vanquish, Twin Power. This is medium frame with large-frame drag. The spool that comes on this JDM-size reel is tailored for 15-lb braid. If you want to use really fine threadline braid, you fit a shallower mid-frame spool, e.g. mid-frame spool above is Yumeya PE0820, tailored for 8-lb braid, and has killer 20-lb drag. What I did on my Twin Power to load (6-lb) finesse braid is match a Vanquish spool. Spare spools are never a bad thing. We have our winter full-moon finesse night-fishing trip booked for the end of January, and if a snook runs off with your terminal, it's easiest to swap in a loaded spool. I keep a loaded spare spool for each frame size. I did basically the same on my large-frame Stradic to fish 15-lb braid inshore

The rod on top is progressive taper, and will have the most fish backbone. The other two rods are both para taper and, certainly, the rod on the bottom is the slowest taper. The rod in the middle should cast the farthest, by equally loading more of the total rod length.

@Glaucus - even the answer to the question is generational. The people who benefit most from What's New are the people starting out. Most of us have our niches and tackle already dialed-in. I was fishing Ambassadeur weightless in the early '80s. I fished my Lew's BB-1 and BB-25 variants literally for a generation. When the age of my tackle forced me back into the market, first thing I discovered was the ineffective mag brake from '80s had evolved into a very useful casting brake (especially for casting light). The new tackle created new niches for me. My approach was the opposite of what the marketers want. The makers have designed obsolescence into production, not supporting parts for reels past 5 years old. I have to give credit to Roy's Bait & Tackle for buying the parts stores for the old Lew's I kept going for up to 30 years.

Actually, our friend has been on the receiving end of off-topic snide trolling, and if you tried to reply to it, you'd get moderated with a warning that you were disrespectful - when the opposite was the case. A string of off-topic frugality interjections that glared of jealousy were normal MO a few years ago, any time the OP was about upscale tackle. If you notice how thoughtful are the replies on this current thread, the BR culture has changed for the better - people here want to inform and learn, and give others room for opinion.

@webertime it's hard to see the slow-moving changes. In the '70s, Ambassadeur had been the benchmark baitcaster since 1954 It was the reel that finally made all those Douglas patents practical. In 1973, Lew gave us the next paradigm change with Speed Spool BB-1 - still basically Ambassadeur, but it separated LW from freespool and was the first LW reel that would cast with the NLW reels of the ninteen-teens. If you moved from Ambassadeur to one of these, it was a rush. (440 worm gear, zirconia pawl and TiN line guide) Lew threw in an ineffective mag brake that would improve over time with magnet technology. We're now in the generation of casting brakes - we moved away from the basic Ambassadeur 2-pin centrifugal. The gradual changes look slow, simply because we're too close to them. IMO, the biggest step in the current generation of reels was Daiwa MagForce.

@SkippinJimmy I've watched BR really improve frugality (over-) reaction in my tenure here (not taking credit). When I arrived, Zillion always brought out hostility - now it's the BR Norm, even considered a bargain.

What I've noticed in 50 years of driving and 55 years of fishing, reliability and service life has increased notably with cost. Fished-through my Mitchell 300 in 4 years (though spinning reels hit bottom in the '90s); my '05 F150 made 256k without a single repair or peripheral (ok, I had to repair a window lift - it's Ford). and yes, fishing and driving can both light your hair on fire

@softwateronly That's a very good description of Shimano's approach - improve the design over time (Stella), then build the same design over using MOC that are cheaper to fabricate (Stradic) . I've said more than once, R&D is how to make a reel cheaper. Larger companies can invest in the fabrication technology. One e.g., stainless gears cost the most to broach and weigh the most, but can last forever because contact surface improves wear resistance with use. Brass weighs the same at an intermediate cost, good wear properties, but wear surface is unforgiving of abuse. We wouldn't have aluminum gears without major progress in anodizing depth, and wear surface hardness now matches a knife blade. Wear surface toughness can be further improved with plasma-ion treatment. Most recently, titanium is being tried to make stronger, lighter pinion gears. ______________________ my ps is not everything you pay for is design improvement and tech. The attention given parts-matching and bench-tuning by labor quality is also worth its cost (Vanquish, Twin Power). Another example here, I was tinkering yesterday with my BC720 on a long shore-casting rod. It outperformed my CV-Z. Fifty years difference in basic design, the performance difference is all bench tuning.

the word that's been left out is hype. There are a handful of paradigm changes in the history of the baitcast reel. 1918 Douglas patent already had most of them, including A/R and freespool that lifts the pinion out of engagement with both main gear and spool. The falling line guide gets the same result as T-wing, but was primarily used because Marhoff's LW patent was still protected. Marketing will always try to convince you that this year's model makes last year's obsolete. The Actual Marketing term for this is The Snow Job. Changes over decades are slow - except in the marketing. Significant changes come about every 25 years - a generation. Where can b/c reels go? Chip control - a reel that reads the lure properties when you run the old-fashioned drop test, then adjusts itself for your cast. I will always remain impressed with mechanically simple answers, and reels built to be supported with parts beyond 5 years.

The set @A-Jay showed is $6 on amazon, prime same-day delivery.

Cal's is just right for it's purpose - drag grease. Don't run out and buy it, but I use MTCW-B on freshwater gears, all LW worm gears. I use MTCW-SW on salt gears.

Silly me.

With McMaster, add $9 UPS charge. Still, a great place for materials and tools you can't find anywhere else. (sheet phosphor-bronze and press-brake cutter for making antique springs) Bolt Depot should always be checked first if you need a replacemet fastener. They sell piecemeal and mail 1st class - service is over the top - they treat piecemeal orders with the same respect as industrial orders. Another good vendor to check for small tools is Micro Mark. Amazon is the quickest source and amazing selection. Cool thread - should be a sticky.

Quoting myself here about useful spares. Avail sells drag-stack brass shim washers in 1- and 0.5-mm thickness. These are extremely useful to have around, fit every M8 drag stack, and increase travel on your star drag, so it won't bottom out. Just about every drag stack has a flat washer, in addition to the concave, keyed spring washers. On more than a couple of used reels, the stainless flat shim washer in the drag stack had been mashed well below its original thickness. The brass Avail shim washers are keeper spares.

@GRiver Rorolure.com has the best tool for the best price. https://rorolure.com/collections/spool-bearing-remover The TX6 tool is required for Daiwa , which has the bearing and pinion pin farther recessed into the spool hollow. The nice thing, the TX6 tool also has adjustable pin height, so it can also be used for Shimano and Abu (Doyo). Roro TX6 does everything that the $45 SLP Works tool does. The Roro TX8 tool is a copy of the Hedgehog tool, and only works on full-shaft reels and full-flange spools, where bearing and pinion pin sits farther away from the spool.

@new2BC4bass When you combine threadline braid with manual bail technique, every complaint about spinning tackle goes away. Keeping free hand close to the spool, you can feather the line coming off the spool, and keep the line just as tight as using thumb on baitcaster - no run-away line in the wind. When I loaned a shore-fishing spinning finesse combo to a friend, he was so floored with the light-lure distance, he went home and bought two - the same rod, and another longer. BTW, this reel is loaded w/ 6-lb 832 - when I tried YGK, it's 16-lb in the same diameter, and I never went back to 832. You'll also get spoiled by the total absence of line memory - this alone for me was enough to chase BFS across the board.

Daiwa has really improved their choice of fasteners and tools in that 25 years. That slotted rim-cover screw (and the 2nd one through the frame width) are a perfect example. @newapti5 Takes a Long 2.5-mm micro-slot driver to reach the screw you circled. Of course, you could live without the e-clip there, you'd just have to keep up with the screws. Their newer reels use high-torque socket heads for the drive cover, here, where I attached my G-Nius hook keeper.

They also double-up for a spanner in the sizes we're normally working with. Best example I had was spanner collar in fly reel A/R - flip the roller bearing to change wind direction. @FishTank - at some point with boogered screw heads, you'll have to retreat to an extractor, but the longer you can put it off, the better.