A friend of my grandson's is getting into tackle repair. To help him out, I gave him the job of lubing one of my spin reels. The reel is a 1000 size Diawa Revros. He had my reel one day. When he returned it, it was super clean, but felt sluggish. I opened it up, and it was clearly over greased. Way to much grease on the gearing. When I removed most of the grease, the reel felt better, and seemed smoother. When I used to use a ABU Cardinal 4, an experienced reel tech told me that most good reels are built to a tight tolerance. This is what makes them feel smooth to begin with. My old Cardinal ran best almost dry, with just a tiny amount of grease on the gears. Sometimes, a brand new reel will feel sluggish, but still smooth. They get over lubed at the factory, when they're built. I pointed this out to my grandson's friend, and told him to use a small model paintbrush to put only enough grease on the gears to cover the gear teeth. This is usually all you need on most reels of any type. It seems like over lubing reels is a common thing. What method do you use to grease the gears in your reels? P.S.- I learned about the paintbrush method here on BR. Bulldog1935, MN Fisher, and Jay Francho said this works well. And, it does.
