# Abu Mechanics; Do you Balance like this?



## KConrad (Oct 14, 2007)

I woke up this morning and made my self some coffee and sat down to email my wife (who's out to sea) and once done I though I'd jump on youtube and have a gander at some casting and fishing vidi's to start the day off right.

Once I opened Youtube, there was this video sitting right in the middle of the page.





I've often wondered about tips and tricks and many of the hush hush secrets of spool balancing. This is an area where I have no knowledge what so ever (aside from the ambiguous "one hump or two hump" line laying, sounds more like a preference for sweeter in tea. Will that be one hump or two?) . 

This device is a tool used by hobbyists for balancing the props of model air planes, and is whoppin $30 (or so says google shopping). 

I don't know this may not be news to anyone here, but I though I'd share in the event some greenhorn, like my self, might be interested in it.


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## Hudak (Sep 10, 2007)

It is better to check balance on an assembled reel with line on it. If it is not balanced, take the line off and try again. You have just started a thread that you should get a lot of information on. If not here, do a search on balancing, on this board, this is one of those topics that come up every so often. Spool balancing is not voodoo, necessarily. You can have a perfectly balanced spool that will never seem to balance with line on it. You can have a spool that isn't perfectly balanced that when line is put on, it balances nicely. It is just trying over and over until you get the right combination of "tea sweetener" and lay the line across the spool properly. Of course, this is just what I have found to be true. There are PLENTY of others out there that know more about this stuff than I do. 

Robert


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## KConrad (Oct 14, 2007)

thekingfeeder said:


> It is better to check balance on an assembled reel with line on it. If it is not balanced, take the line off and try again. You have just started a thread that you should get a lot of information on.  If not here, do a search on balancing, on this board, this is one of those topics that come up every so often. *Spool balancing is not voodoo, necessarily*. You can have a perfectly balanced spool that will never seem to balance with line on it. You can have a spool that isn't perfectly balanced that when line is put on, it balances nicely. It is just trying over and over until you get the right combination of "tea sweetener" and lay the line across the spool properly. Of course, this is just what I have found to be true. There are PLENTY of others out there that know more about this stuff than I do.
> 
> Robert


Pretty much sounds like voodoo to me

I'm sure there are as many ways one balances a spool as there are casters in this world... And it does indeed seem to be more logical to insure that your spool is balanced properly WITH line and WITHIN the confines of the reel.... It just never occurred to me to utilize a device like this somewhere in the process of getting that perfect rotation, nor have I heard of anyone else using such a device. So I thought to share..


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## Tommy (Jan 24, 2001)

I have seen that clip. While pretty cool to watch, I don't know any tournament casters that balance a spool using that method.

Take a look at this video clip. I put this together a while back to help guys understand the "fairy dust and eagle feathers" mystique of reel tuning. This is exactly how I tune tournament reels. I also balance my fishing reels using the same methods. I always spin test with dry bearings then lube with red rocket oil before casting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQYZCtBGfNY&feature=channel_page

here is a spin after tuning and before bearings are oiled.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_z8Oaj84Ls&feature=channel_page

The single center hump does the trick on most reels (probably 75%), if it doesn't work spool all of the line onto another reel then reline using two humps, one at each end.

Hope this helps.

Tommy


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## KConrad (Oct 14, 2007)

That's a stellar video Tommy! 

I've seen many of your videos and not sure how I've missed that one but I'm glad you pointed it out. 

From the descriptions and diagrams I've seen, I would have made gross errors in trying to "balance" a spool. :redface: I never imagined that:
A) the ubiquitous "hump" was so small..
B) the ubiquitous "hump" came so early in the process..
C) the fill next to said "hump" was so coarsely done (though the more even/congruent the line lay the better)

I know many of your videos are "common knowledge" for so many people here but I think some of this (such as this and your OTG explanations) should be sticky posted in this forum.

Again, thanks for taking the time to make the video and sharing it with us all.


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## Mark G (Nov 15, 2004)

Well- since the price was cheap enough-- $29.99 + shipping-- I picked one up -- out of curiosity if nothing else. It certainly isn't necessary to have, but after playing with it this weekend, it certainly does work well. 

One thing I like -- it does eliminate any sort of guess work on whether you might have a shaft or bearing issues-- since just the spool is used on the balancing rod. You can check the spool with line on it-- as well as the empty spool-- it is a bit time consuming dismantling the spool every time you want to check the balance-- but it's kind of cool to tinker with this gadget. 

BTW-- I've only just had mine for a couple of days-- I'll bring it to the upcoming tournies for anyone that wants to take a closer look at it.

Did anyone notice in the video-- that one is not set up level-- it took me awhile to get the two adjustable sides dead level-- doesn't look like they even bothered with that for this video.


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## fishnuttz (Jun 27, 2008)

When working on a fishing setup would you use a arbor knot???


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## KConrad (Oct 14, 2007)

Surf Cat said:


> Well- since the price was cheap enough-- $29.99 + shipping-- I picked one up -- out of curiosity if nothing else. It certainly isn't necessary to have, but after playing with it this weekend, it certainly does work well.
> 
> One thing I like -- it does eliminate any sort of guess work on whether you might have a shaft or bearing issues-- since just the spool is used on the balancing rod. You can check the spool with line on it-- as well as the empty spool-- it is a bit time consuming dismantling the spool every time you want to check the balance-- but it's kind of cool to tinker with this gadget.
> 
> ...


Well at least someone else thought this was a novel toy(j/k)

I did notice that it was not level, and I though it might be an optical illusion due to camera angle or something. But I also noticed that he had placed the spool not centered on the spindle, but to one side (the High side). I wondered if there was a reason for this... kind of curious my self.

I did find an interesting post on WSF about balancing a spool that seemed to indicate the same kind of difference. It read like:

"_rest the spindle on 2 small blocks so that the spool is running downhill towards the thin end of the spindle half a millimeter._"

http://www.worldseafishing.com/forums/showthread.php?t=164140&highlight=spool+balancing

Now, that's rather vague, and in the video the offset between the two end rotors is more than a half a millimeter... the plot thickens...


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## kingfisherman23 (Dec 14, 2003)

Based on the lip around the bearing hole in the left side of the spool and the lines of the spool itself, it appears to me that the spool in the video is a custom-machined item. This would make it illegal under SportCast rules. I can definitely see the use in running a balance test like that on a customed spool, so you can put it back on the lathe and smooth out heavy spots.

Evan


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## Mark G (Nov 15, 2004)

kingfisherman23 said:


> Based on the lip around the bearing hole in the left side of the spool and the lines of the spool itself, it appears to me that the spool in the video is a custom-machined item. This would make it illegal under SportCast rules. I can definitely see the use in running a balance test like that on a customed spool, so you can put it back on the lathe and smooth out heavy spots.
> 
> Evan



I have ordered spare replacements spools for my 5500-- one of the ones I recieved was identical to the one in the video -- had the lip on the left side-- for what it is worth.


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## kingfisherman23 (Dec 14, 2003)

Surf Cat said:


> I have ordered spare replacements spools for my 5500-- one of the ones I recieved was identical to the one in the video -- had the lip on the left side-- for what it is worth.


Ahh. Thanks for the info. I was looking at my spools, and they all have that thin rim

Evan


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## Mark G (Nov 15, 2004)

kingfisherman23 said:


> Ahh. Thanks for the info. I was looking at my spools, and they all have that thin rim
> 
> Evan


Most of mine do as well-- not sure if that spool was for a specific model-- but it's what was sent-- the other 3 I got were just like the standard V spools.


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## jlentz (Sep 11, 2005)

I have not used that specific model of spool balance tool but did buy a RC plane prop balancer a few years ago that works using basically the same principle. The prop balancer actually has the spindle held in place by 2 magnets so there is very virtually no resistance as the spindle can be set to spin on only one magnet. Like the above posts mentioned, it is a nice gadget/tool to tinker with. It can get pretty frustrating because of the extreme accuracy of balance that can be obtained.

John


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## Mark G (Nov 15, 2004)

> "rest the spindle on 2 small blocks so that the spool is running downhill towards the thin end of the spindle half a millimeter."


I can't quite figure out why anyone would want the shaft running at an angle that is not level-- in practice the shaft and weight of the spool causes the whole thing to wander to the lower side and rub against the end that is lowest-- causing the spin to come to an abrupt end-- at least on this gadget.


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