Mag tuning

[bulldog1935]

After 4 years in salt service, my oldest Super Duty G showed its first rust sign - only in the magnets (everything else all through the reel looks pristine).  

This is filliform corrosion - sideways under a coating - a mechanism for a little bit of salt from the air, combined with condensation, to concentrate in place - and you can't remove it, without removing the coating.  (The coating is there to keep the magnets from rusting, etc.)

 

I did clean and rebuild the whole brake plate, and everything inside was pristine

on that brake rebuild, getting the knob and cam plate in phase - 6th time's a charm...

 

I ordered Momo N52 magnets through Ali Express. While their piece-price on these looks dirt cheap, they hit you with a big shipping charge.  

I ordered 8, and they came prepackaged as 10 - the $15 total price was still fair.  

BTW, every old magnet that came out showed incipient attack on the bottom.  

The Momo N52 magnets are gold-plated - will be interesting to see how this fares compared to the coating on the stock magnets.  

 

These magnets are powerful.  In my 1/4-oz niche on the old magnets, I had the mag set a notch above 50% for total-reliable casting, and great cast distance.  

Test casting with the 8 new magnets, incipient backlash was only about 20% mag adjustment, and the next two notches were excessive step changes on the cam - too much mag.  

So I took two magnets out.  Trying again, didn't cast or adjust enough to find incipient backlash, but was getting 120' reliable cast at a little over 40%, and several notches in that range felt better graduated - that is, narrow changes in mag over several notches.  

 

Ready to go fishing, and since I'm here, my oldest Super Duty G.  

The red tension knob is Avail and the thumb clutch is AMO - neither color part was spendy.  

[redmeansdistortion]

Have you tried white vinegar to remove the corrosion?  White vinegar in an ultrasonic cleaner makes quick work of salt without damaging anything.  Here's a well salted Abu 4500C frame I did.

 

[bulldog1935]

In this case, would be pointless.  

I'm a metallurgist and corrosion engineer, and wrote the article on cleaning and preserving antique reels.  

 

Not to offend, my point is how to tune mag brakes.  

 

The thing about salt rust, it's more corrosive than salt itself, and you don't want it moving around inside your reel.  

Regards, bro.  

 

  

[redmeansdistortion]

4 minutes ago, bulldog1935 said:

In this case, would be pointless.  

I'm a metallurgist and corrosion engineer, and wrote on the article on cleaning and preserving antique reels.  

Regards, bro.  

 

  

Excellent write-up, bookmarked that one.

[new2BC4bass]

Bulldog....all I've got to say is, "You've got a lot more patience than I do." 

[CrankFate]

11 hours ago, redmeansdistortion said:

Have you tried white vinegar to remove the corrosion?  White vinegar in an ultrasonic cleaner makes quick work of salt without damaging anything.  Here's a well salted Abu 4500C frame I did.

 

All I’ll say is I read on the internet that the best way to remove paint from an irreplaceable HVAC vent returns is vinegar. So I got a Costco bottle of white vinegar and soaked the custom sized vent covers that came with my house in it for about 3 days and it peeled right off. Rinsed them. Dried them. Repainted them. Worked perfectly. It’s been about 11 years now. No problems.

[desmobob]

I've used a vinegar (or citric acid) bath to remove rust and corrosion from old Coleman lantern parts while restoring lanterns.  It is very effective, safe , and environmentally friendly too.

 

 

 

[bulldog1935]

@desmobob Your lantern came out nice.  

The 1884 Spalding Kosmic reel I show above wasn't mine - I was hired to remove salts and dealloying, and restore it - it's valued at $4000.  

 

ok, here's my article from 15 years ago.  

Cleaning Reels | Classic Fly Reels | Fiberglass Flyrodders

However, the subject of this thread is still tuning magnetic brakes...

 

the question has been raised.
Reels are loaded with gunk and corrosion - usually 70 to 80 years' worth by the time I get them. They're made out of aluminum, brass and steel, painted, anodized, or bare. Lubricants oxidize, releasing acids (or caustic in the case of lithium) form tars and waxes and eventually turn into polymers. Limestone residues from chalk streams are corrosive to aluminum.

 

Reels have it tough. I've never taken before photos, and I've had some nasty ones, but most of you have seen some of my after photos. Here's what I do. (credit to Richard Thomann who gave me this procedure 10 year ago, though, I've added my caveats, touches and insight from my experience working with it)

 

1) Take the reel down as far as you feel comfortable.

2) Wipe everything down with paper towels or q-tips and whatever you can to remove the loose debris and old lubricant.

 

3) Vinegar-water bath. This is generally four parts warm water to one part vinegar. Temperature, time and vinegar content can all go up (up to 3 hours) if you reel is all brass. (NOT painted brass - use only soapy water rinses and brushes on painted brass, because the hydrogen generated in any immersion solution will blow the paint right off.)

 

some basic guidelines - 30 to 45 minutes for painted reels, or rubber side plates and handles (bakelite is impervious)
wouldn't go past 1 hour for lead finished alloy fly reels
2 hours for plated brass
3 hours for bare brass or German silver

 

Generally, we're looking at finger-warm solution for about an hour or less. On a painted aluminum reel or lead finished reel, you might want to keep it down to a half-hour. Although, lead finish is usually more tolerant than paint, so you can push to the full hour if it needs it. And take it out when its visibly clean. Take a soft tooth brush to the debris every 10-15 minutes. This solution should do the bulk of your cleaning. If you have tenacious crud, rusted steel, dealloyed brass (looks pink) you may want to push it a little longer, but balance it against the visible effects on your finish. Rub out the insides of bushings with q-tips or twisted up paper towel.
Rinse well in lukewarm water.

 

4) dilute soap bath - very dilute. Alkalis cause corrosion of aluminum. Ammonia causes cracking of brass. Not to alarm you, but you're simply using this bath to wet and remove the tar remnants that were broken up by the vinegar, and to neutralize residual vinegar. Again use the soft toothbrush to break up any residues.

 

5) Final rinse - very thorough cold-water rinse here. Be careful of the sink rinsing off your tiny parts.

6) Air dry - overnight is good.

 

7) Rub with a wax or silicone guncloth. This is also a good time to put on a coating of Butcher's Bowling Alley Wax if you want to do that kind of thing.

 

8 ) Lube and reassemble - use Zebco Quantum Hot Sauce - the good stuff.
Hot Sauce Grease on drag gears, and on worn and wobbly spindles. Hot Sauce Lube (light oil) on spindles/bushings, handle spindles, pawl stanchions, bearings, drag blocks and threads.

yeah, I know y'all don't like Hot Sauce, but there's nothing safer on valuable

antiques, especially cast alloy.  It also works very well on all fly reels.  

___________________

special topics.

 

Magnesium reels - Marryat, Battenkill MkIII - exposed magnesium appears to react vigorously with vinegar, so it's probably wisest to bypass soaking in solutions and use Boeshield for cleaning.

 

Solvents - acetone is for removing paint and plastic handles - be very careful. Yes, it removes tars also. Be very careful.

 

One application for denatured alcohol is removing old line varnish from inside a spool. It will usually come out with a good swipe, but try to avoid drips, keep it away from handles, follow quickly with a dry swab and even limit exposure to the paint.

 

oxidizers/colorants/patinating agents with their steps and rinses would fit between steps 6 and 7 above, but this is real art that I'm going to dodge here.

Abrasives/polishes.

I'm going to mostly stay away from this, because I usually quit at wax.
But OK, I keep Pol metal polish around, and always have "Miracle" lemon-oil polishing cloths.
I lightly and quickly rub down my rods with Miracle polishing cloths to keep the calcium buildup down, and chase that with a chamois.

 

Hope this helps,

Ron Mc

 

p.s. here's the goal

[desmobob]

Are the stock magnets in reels the rare earth type?  If not, were your replacements?

[bulldog1935]

I don't know anything about the stock magnets, and I'm sure the new magnets are rare-earth - neodymium.  

 

N52 powerful magnet　 Gold plating|Fishing Tools| - AliExpress 

 

When I took the old rusted magnet out, measured 5 mm x 1.5 mm thick.  

 

Just remember the listed piecemeal price is a ruse- they make up for it with a big shipping fee (for Ali).  And of course you'll see the total before you send them paypal.  

 

I'm also guessing that's silver electroplate coating the old magnets - silver and chloride don't get along.  

[desmobob]

I have a cheap BFS reel or two who's only real weakness is weak magnetic braking.   Stronger magnets might be a big help.