Best reel oil?

[northern basser]

Wondering what everyone thinks about oil for BC reel.  Whats the best?

[Delaware Valley Tackle]

I like Yellow Rocket Fuel for bearings, Corrosion X for other parts, hinges etc and Super Lube grease for gear teeth. I lube the worm gear with a high quality automotive 90w gear lube as a compromise between grease and oil.

The key to lubing anything is to make sure it's clean and free of other lubes. There is no magic lube that cure all ills. Brand is secondary to good over all maintenance. Any of the quality products meant for the application will do the job.

[Maxximus Redneckus]

This is like askin whats the best reel..with a lot less choices

[.ghoti.]

For any other than the spool bearings, any decent clean oil will be fine. DVT gave you the key tip. Make sure they're clean before lubing any parts.

For spool bearings, you first need to answer this question. How often do you want to service your reels? Or, have them serviced?

If you answered once per year, then Rocket Fuel, Ardent Bearing Oil, Daiwa Red, or any of the recently popular low viscosity oils, are really not for you. They simply will not last for a full season of fishing.

Shimano oil will last a season. The Daiwa oil that comes in what looks like a mini toothpast tube will last a season.

[northern basser]

Thanks for the replies.  I do realize it is kind of a broad question,  but mostly I was wondering if using some of my stock of shimano oil was ok or if I could do better.

5 or 6 months is about the extent of our season up here then its ice fishing.  I usually clean and grease my reels before the season starts and once during.

[KYntucky Warmouth]

I use Ardent Reel Butter on my reels with no trouble

[.RM.]

Thanks for the replies. I do realize it is kind of a broad question, but mostly I was wondering if using some of my stock of shimano oil was ok or if I could do better.

5 or 6 months is about the extent of our season up here then its ice fishing. I usually clean and grease my reels before the season starts and once during.

IMO

Doing a deep clean & lube at the beginning of the season and using the Shimano oil will keep your reel/s in top shape, then doing a single drop on the same oil points about mid season with the same oil will keep the reel/s going for the remainder of the season.

Shimano' oil is a quality oil, and will do the job for you.

Good Luck & Tight Lines!

[baluga]

I thought you might want to know from another reel expert's experience.

Cut from Alan Tani's post.

for a general purpose oil, i use corrosion x. i have no idea what's in it. the company won't tell, but it's cheap enough and has worked well enough over the last 10 years that i feel very comfortable recommending it even though i don't know what it's made out of. you're looking at $17 for a big pump bottle or spray can that will last me a couple of months, but will last the average fisherman a lifetime. compared to some other lubes, corrosion x has the viscosity of pancake syrup, but i think that it is the single best all purpose product out there. and it's cheap!

then there are the performance lubes that cost $5-10 for a single one ounce bottle. ok, if it's going to cost as much as a single malt scotch, i want to know what's in it before i recommend it. products like quantum's hot sauce, metaloil, reel-x, and all the house brands from penn, daiwa, and shimano, all fall into this category. these products are all much faster than corrosion x, they are much more expensive than corrosion x, and the formulations are all secret. it's fine to have secrets, but until these products are all objectively (there's that word again) evaluated, it would be tough for anyone to make an objective recommendation.

now for . reel +. i used it for over a year and stopped. it is, without a doubt, the fastest stuff out there. it is a teflon polymer lubricant suspended in a freon carrier. the freon evaporates in microseconds and leaves a thin dry film of teflon. the freespool from a reel properly cleaned and then lubed with . reel + is mind blowing! but it only lasts a few weeks. after that point, the freespool is the same as corrosion x, meaning mediocre. still, if you are a tournament guy or a long ranger and you service your reels before every trip, try . reel + and prepare to be amazed. it will absolutely, positively, deliver the fastest longest freespool of any product on the market today.

and finally, there is tsi 301. jim nomura has been working with me for the last half a year. he is an engineer and brought a level of engineering expertise that was sorely missing in this little hobby endeavor of mine. one thing he brought in was tsi 301. i'm guessing that the freespool from reel treated with tsi 301 is perhaps 80% that of a reel treated with . reel +. the big advantage of tsi 301 is that it lasts much longer. i believe that we are looking at 6 to 12 months of great freespool for tsi 301 versus 1-2 weeks for . reel +. this puts the performance on a par with the other superlubes mentioned above, but at a half to a quarter of the price of the superlubes. i've been using it for the last 6 months now (as of 9/2010) and have been very, very, impressed. the downside? it's $20 plus shipping, it is only available on line, and shipping is slow as molassas.

so right now it's yamaha marine all purpose blue grease for all the non-exposed metal surfaces, cal's drag grease for carbon fiber drag washer, corrosion x for a general purpose low speed oil (bearings, levelwinds, handles), and tsi 301 for high speed bearings and levelwinds. for your application, you could grab any of the superlubes online or at any shop and do just fine!

[qp_iGniTe_qp1301600405]

Not to thread jack, but how often are you supposed to lube your reel. I just got my Curado and was wondering if i should lube it straight out of the box.

[Dave T.]

I have the Shimano oil, and it works great. I also have Ardent's "Reel Butter" oil.. also works great.

[Gatorbassman]

I like Yellow Rocket Fuel for bearings, Corrosion X for other parts, hinges etc and Super Lube grease for gear teeth. I lube the worm gear with a high quality automotive 90w gear lube as a compromise between grease and oil.

The key to lubing anything is to make sure it's clean and free of other lubes. There is no magic lube that cure all ills. Brand is secondary to good over all maintenance. Any of the quality products meant for the application will do the job.

I agree with this 100%. I use a costom mixed Rocket Fule lube. Rocket Fule alone slings out of the bearings very quickly and needs a little something to thicken it up a little. It is mixed by older friend who was responsible for bringing Rocket Fule to the states many many years ago.

[Delaware Valley Tackle]

Not to thread jack, but how often are you supposed to lube your reel. I just got my Curado and was wondering if i should lube it straight out of the box.

In most cases I recommend an annual tear down and lubing bearings once or twice in between. I find that manufacturers tend to over-lube but a drop on each bearing probably wouldn't hurt. I'd take a new reel and fish it hard right out of the box to make sure there are no warranty issues and then have it serviced. It will probably come back better than new. 

[baluga]

Not to thread jack, but how often are you supposed to lube your reel. I just got my Curado and was wondering if i should lube it straight out of the box.

In most cases I recommend an annual tear down and lubing bearings once or twice in between. I find that manufacturers tend to over-lube but a drop on each bearing probably wouldn't hurt. I'd take a new reel and fish it hard right out of the box to make sure there are no warranty issues and then have it serviced. It will probably come back better than new.

2x, same here, this also gives me a good feel of the before and after result of servicing the reel, a good measurement if it comes out better after cleaning and re-lubing

[.ghoti.]

a question for DVT, RM, or J Francho, or anybody else who'd like way in on it.

Regarding the levelwind worm gear, I know not to use grease. This being the gear by far the most likely to pick up grit, sand or some other foreign material.

Has anybody tried one of those spray-on , let it dry type of lubricants for this application? It would seem, at first glance, to be a natural choice.  A dry worm gear would surely pick up a lot less crud and corruption than a wetted one.

[J Francho]

I tried some corrosion resistant dry formula.  The problem is how do you flush the inevitable grime out.  With straight oil, a few drops cleans the gunk out.

[Delaware Valley Tackle]

a question for DVT, RM, or J Francho, or anybody else who'd like way in on it.

Regarding the levelwind worm gear, I know not to use grease. This being the gear by far the most likely to pick up grit, sand or some other foreign material.

Has anybody tried one of those spray-on , let it dry type of lubricants for this application? It would seem, at first glance, to be a natural choice. A dry worm gear would surely pick up a lot less crud and corruption than a wetted one.

A wet lube will suspend a certain amount of solids and flush them as jfrancho suggests. I'm currently using a 90wt gear lube (just drops) on worm gears. I find this to be a good compromise between light oil and grease.

[iceintheveins]

I like quantum hot sauce, or is that classified as a grease rather than oil?

[WVBassHunter]

I use Hoppe's Elite gun oil and their gun grease.  It works wonders for my 53yr old Remington Gamemaster 870 and my Sig Sauer SP2022 so it is like silk!

[Ronbaby]

Yep. I just use Remington gun oil for everything.

[maineman]

I use Eezox with my reels, works great! No rust and silk smooth bearings. Also for you gun owners it is just the perfect lube for 22 rimfires. You will have to look up Eezox online, it is not easily available in most stores.

[SoFlaBassAddict]

100% Unicorn tears.

[BASSclary]

Unicorn tears are out-dated, the kids now-a-days are using Narwhal tears. 

[Dr. Watson]

I've been using the Penn angler's pack for everything, works great, nice synthetic grease and oil made by XR-1. However, I do think that the mil-comm angler's products are quite a bit better, especially from my experiences with their weapons oil.

check them out:

http://www.mil-comm.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=35&Itemid=50

happy fishing,

Britton

[.ghoti.]

An update. Just got a bottle of TSI 321.

I tore down a pair of Daiwa HSTA's. Both had been serviced recently, so all I did was clean and relube, using 321, the spool bearings, worm gear, and mag-force rotor assembly.

Had to try them out this morning before work. I could detect no difference in smoothness. Casting improved. I had to crank up the braking one notch, and backed off on the effort. A nice improvement, so far.

Both reels are noticeably quieter. Casting noise is almost gone, and cranking noise virtually non existent.

So far, I'm impressed. How long it lasts is yet to be determined. It's too late this year to get in enough fishing time to make a valid evaluation.

[SirSnookalot]

I use corrosion block and love it.........was recommended to me by a Shimano tech a few years ago.