Hi All - I am a partner in a small design and manufacturing firm in Goleta and we are thinking of building "the" bait casting reel. We are looking for input based on your experience with other top quality reel. Any feed back would be greatly appreciated. I am thinking of an improved version of a Calcuta reel. Some item might include;

Semi-standard items-
Line weight/capacity
Level wind or not
Housing material (Aluminum or Titanium)
Bearing type (or reel type you like)
Drag material (or reel type you like)
Magnetic "clutch" or not
Retrieve ratio

Other
Housing shape/profile - Should we consider departing from the generally round shape.
Handle type

Right now we are looking at a all titanium housing with high end bearings for corrosion resistance. This is a great opportunity to have your ideas considered during the concept phase of a new reel design.

thanks much,
dbp

You can e-mail me directly for a face to face discussion at dpaden@mmsb.com

daiwa millionaire 300. if you want a non level wind, then that's a whole new ballpark. if you want the best look at the trinidads or accurates.

Thanks - I have seen the Daiwa Millionair series. Nice reel, but the threaded side plates worry me as does the use of plastic parts. I'll look in to the others you mentioned. Have you fished these reels? Accurates have a nice look, but I have yet to take one apart.

Thanks again for the reply!

dbp

Dave thanks for the post. Sounds like an interesting idea you have. If I could build my dream reel it would be a Corsair 300 sized reel but with the quality or better of a Calcutta. It would be a really strong reel for throwing big trout plugs on 25lb test but also have finesse enough for 15 - 17lb calico bass/halibut applications. I really like the dartanium drag on the calcutta 400 and the power handle option. I don't like the wood knob on the power handle though, I'd rather have a more comfortable soft grip. I like a reel with no level wind but on a 300 sized reel I think a level wind would be necessary. As far as retrieve ratio I think 5:1 would be good. The calcutta 400 is a little slow but 6:1 is a bit much for throwing the big plugs.

As far as what to make the reel out of, I would say make it out of whatever is most rigid. I hate my corsairs because they flex so much under a big weight. I wish they had a small reel that felt as solid as a Newell 332. Probably hard to do but I would be willing to sacrafice weight for strength.

Keep us posted on how it's going!

-Rob

LAST EDITED ON Aug-06-01 AT 04:01 PM (PST)

We are considering Titanium for both the strength to weight ration as well as the corrosion resistance. With forged aluminum reels you are depending on the anodize for protection. Any threaded feature is subject to serious problems. As for the size, I too have been looking for something that is not available. The Calcuta 250 has a nice frame size but not quite enough line capacity. Another goal is to improve the seals protecting the gearing. As for the gear ratio, we would like to offer a reel with user changable gear sets to change as required. Not sure if this is possible yet, but its on the list.

thanks much,
dbp

hey Rob, have you tried the catala 300? I have one, its pretty soild! way better than a corsair.



Zach Lehmann

Yep - a reel comparable to the Calcutta but slightly larger than the 250 would be awesome (Calcutta 300?). The Penn International 955 would be it except for it has a push button on the frame instead of a bar (like the calcutta 250) for disengaging the spool.

***********************

You can't catch tomorrow what you kill today - please practice catch and release.

Assuming you have no size in mind, I'd agree with the 300 size. I don't know the advantages/disadvantages of titanium vs. aluminum, but I'd imagine a titanium sideplated/framed reel would be a bit pricey. Keep in mind, Shimano will be coming out with the Calcutta 300TE very soon, which will be THE 300 sized reel, but at $350 bucks, it's quite a price to pay. So, if you want to try to beat the 300TE, it will have a very high price tag, plus you won't have the name recognition that Shimano has, or the already established customer service. So, saying that you want to make THE reel, may be pushing it. With that said, you could make a really sweet reel that's affordable for guys like us!!!

Here's a quick tip- the bigger the drags the better. All the progear reels have drags equivalent to the next size up in the Penn line, ie the 500 sized progears have 4/0 drags. The 4/0 sized progears have 6/0 drags, etc. (that's part of the reason they're so popular) A 300 size reel with like 500 size drags would be awesome. Of course you'll have to increase the size of the gear box, and probably the main gear which would consequently increase the gear ratio, but something could be worked out, I'm sure. Maybe messing around with the threading of the main and/or pinion gears, or engineering some type of drag stack system that doesn't directly sit on top of the main gear, and is thereby not limited to the size of the main gear.

This is a great topic, BTW, and thanks for bringing it here!!! I could go on and on about this, and I'm sure I will... LMAO.

IMO, if it's over $300 for a 300 sized reel, there will be very little market for it. I don't know why Shimano made a $350 300 sized reel before they made a $175 priced one. So, like I said, don't go for the best, most expensive reel, go for what there's a market for. Right now, there are no reel top quality 300 sized reel available with all the basic features necessary.

I agree with Rob on the handle assessment. Maybe an upgrade handle like the calcutta 400 has would be necessary, because a power handle might overpower a reel of that size, while a standard bass handle might be right for it, but that's something that you can only tell by testing on the water. I also think that some type of padded handle would be nice. Something with hypalon might be taken as ripping off progear, so I'd go with a handle with molded plastic and some type of grip material over it (like the newer penn handles).

Level wind is a tough one. Normally I'd say no level wind because I hate them. But, a 300 sized reel might need a level wind. It might also be a pain to wind line back and forth on that small of a reel. If you do include a level wind, make it non tracking like Shimano's, not tracking like Penn's. The tracking level winds that track back and forth while the reel's in free spool can hamper casting.

A very important, but seemingly overlooked feature is a rod clamp. Make sure to include a rod clamp, or have on available to fit the reel. I know lots and lots and lots of guys will be fishing these reels for calico bass (the 300 size is the ideal calico bass size) and at least half of em will want it on a cork taped rod with no reel seat (myself included).

I'd look into the possiblitly of a magnetic casting control, like on the Daiwas. There may be corrosion problems with this, but I'm really not sure. You might want to look into that.

A clutch bar is a MUST. Penn has a reel (955) that is almost the right size, but since it has the push button instead of the clutch bar lots of guys don't like em.

As for bearings, get the best you can afford for the reel. The more bearings the better, but you don't need as many as a calcutta TE. You don't need 4 bearings in the handle and 8 on the spool shaft and 4 on the gear shaft, etc. But you want more than a Corsair...

For drag material, go HT100. There's no substitute. This is considered the best drag material by long rangers, inshore fishermen, everybody. Dartanium is good, but it hasn't really been put to the test, and it hasn't been around long enough. HT100 is tried and true, and it will attract a lot of attention if it has HT100's right out of the box. It's freakin made from airplane brake material for god's sake... ;-)

If I could combine the best features of all the reel companies it would be as follows:

Shimano- smoothness, customer service, castability.
Penn- strength, availablity/interchangeablity of parts.
Daiwa- magnetic casting control.
Progear- strength, drag systems, handles, freespool.
Newell- weight, spool weight, castability.

Definitely star drag. There's no reason to consider lever drag. It will only hamper freespool. You don't need 20 pounds of drag on a small reel like that.

An interesting thing to mess around with would be the anti-reverse. Every company seems to have their methods. The one weakness of the Calcuttas is the roller bearing. It corrodes quite easily. Maybe a modified roller bearing would work, but I think if you're going to try to stick big drags in there you'll probably need to go with a standard dog. It won't be as smooth but it will be a hard core saltwater whoopin @$$ reel. That's kind of a toss up. You can go for sure strenght with the dog, but sacrifice smoothness, or you can try to engineer something that's smoother and hope it doesn't pop when you've got the drag buttoned on a bluefin with the big drags. That may be your toughest part in the design.

Make sure the spool is light. Go graphite if you have to, but make sure it's light.

Try to avoid using dissimilar metals in direct contact with eachother. This is a corrosion problem waiting to happen. Even the Progears have this weakness. There's a few things people frown upon when they open up a new reel. One is dissimilar metals in direct contact with eachother. Two is plastic parts in important places (corsair...). And of course there are many others, but I won't list them all for you... and this brings me to my next point-

NO PLASTIC INSIDE THE SIDEPLATES. Just open up a Penn reel and look at what's metal and what's not. The only exception would be some type of apparatus for the casting control, or other low-stress part. But things like the eccentric, dog, yoke, bridge etc. can not be plastic. It is absolutely essential that all of the standard, load bearing parts which are necessary for the reel to perform basic functions over and over and over be metal. After enough use and enough abuse, and plastic part will break. Metal will last a while longer.

I guess that's all I can think of at the moment. Great topic, and thanks again for posting. You've got mail.
-Brian

Thanks Brian!!!
If I was to buy 5 reels for "testing", what would they be? I realize not everyone can afford to buy some of them (including me), but looking at/in them is priceless. They don't need to be 300 sized.

dbp

Can't think of five because all I use are calcuttas:

Calcutta 250 & Calcutta 400.

A reel just as big around as the 250 but somewhere between the width of the 250 and 400 would be nice. I'd vote for no clicker and a disengaging level wind. If you were to build 2 I'd say make the second one with a clicker and no level wind.

***********************

You can't catch tomorrow what you kill today - please practice catch and release.

Calcutta 400, Newell 220, Progear 251, Penn International 965, and Penn Squidder.
-Brian

damn brian, i'm too lazy to read your whole post, but i have to correct you, 4/0 size progears have 4/0 size drags. what do YOU know about pro gears, you only have one, while i on the other hand, have 4, lol.

the ps call yet? i dont wanna be on the trip by myself with a bunch of old people lol.

leif

Really? I wonder why I was under the impression that the 4/0 PG's had 6/0 drags. That's weird. Haven't heard from the PS yet. I'll start calling em tomorrow.
-Brian

Check out Shimano's Cardiff 300- epic reel