Over Lube

[Mobasser]

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.

[optimator]

I use a brush. It's the same way I grease my O/U shotguns too. 

[Delaware Valley Tackle]

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. 

[MN Fisher]

Yep - I buy acid brushes by the carton full...just the right stiffness. I also use hypodermic needles for my oiling, precision placement and only a touch.

36 brushes for $7 right now...https://www.amazon.com/Pro-Grade-Acid-Brushes-Count/dp/B07PHG2DQY?source=ps-sl-shoppingads-lpcontext&ref_=fplfs&psc=1&smid=A1HD84JZ5JR3NU