Outsourcing

[ATheall]

There's a new entry in ATheall's blog:

Outsourcing

[toaster816]

As someone who owns only greenies and z's, (with the exception of one Abu), I would definitely be interested.

However, I would not make an exact copy, I would make a few minor but necessary changes.

1. Sealed drag and main housing
2. Infinite anti-reverse with no free spool (get rid of the eccentric and eccentric lever)
3. Slotted Rotor/Drilled Spool
4. If you are replicating the Z I would get rid sticker grove on the rotor and leave it clean.
5. Add and external counter weight

Reels should have no stickers, bells, whistles, or anything else besides the essentials. No fancy colors. Solid black or solid silver.


Make one out of aluminum at a around $150, make one out of titanium at around $300.

[ATheall]

Toaster- You gotta keep it simple, or the price is going to shoot up on you and/or the functionality compromised. Otherwise you're going to wind up with another $600-1,000 sealed reel. That market is well served. I'm saying the market needs a tougher non-sealed reel. That's the one area that isn't served at the moment.

The more new engineering that has to go into it, the more its going to cost.

You could very easily have a sealed drag knob but not a totally sealed drag system at a reasonable price point. Same goes for a sealed housing. You'd have to engineer in too many changes.

Infinite A/R wouldn't be a good thing because the reel isn't going to be able to be sealed. If its not sealed that one way bearing is going to get contaminated all of the time and cause headaches.

The spool on a 706 is drilled already a bit, but this is an area that could be improved upon easily and in a cost effective manner.

Sticker groove as well- better to delete it so Penn can't get as wound up about copying their reel.

External counterweight- probably easy enough.

Titanium would cost and arm and a leg- it would have to be cast aluminum mostly, with some stainless and bronze- just like a 706.

I know everyone would like a sealed Penn 706 but really the Van Staal is likely the closest anyone's going to come to that. Really that's just a sealed Crack/Luxor. All of the added engineering, CNC machining and seals and what not added drive up the cost. Its not going to be any easier or cheaper to similarly transform the Penn.

Originally Posted by toaster816

As someone who owns only greenies and z's, (with the exception of one Abu), I would definitely be interested.

However, I would not make an exact copy, I would make a few minor but necessary changes.

1. Sealed drag and main housing
2. Infinite anti-reverse with no free spool (get rid of the eccentric and eccentric lever)
3. Slotted Rotor/Drilled Spool
4. If you are replicating the Z I would get rid sticker grove on the rotor and leave it clean.
5. Add and external counter weight

Reels should have no stickers, bells, whistles, or anything else besides the essentials. No fancy colors. Solid black or solid silver.


Make one out of aluminum at a around $150, make one out of titanium at around $300.

[toaster816]

Originally Posted by ATheall

Toaster- You gotta keep it simple, or the price is going to shoot up on you and/or the functionality compromised. Otherwise you're going to wind up with another $600-1,000 sealed reel. That market is well served. I'm saying the market needs a tougher non-sealed reel. That's the one area that isn't served at the moment.

The more new engineering that has to go into it, the more its going to cost.

You could very easily have a sealed drag knob but not a totally sealed drag system at a reasonable price point. Same goes for a sealed housing. You'd have to engineer in too many changes.

Infinite A/R wouldn't be a good thing because the reel isn't going to be able to be sealed. If its not sealed that one way bearing is going to get contaminated all of the time and cause headaches.

The spool on a 706 is drilled already a bit, but this is an area that could be improved upon easily and in a cost effective manner.

Sticker groove as well- better to delete it so Penn can't get as wound up about copying their reel.

External counterweight- probably easy enough.

Titanium would cost and arm and a leg- it would have to be cast aluminum mostly, with some stainless and bronze- just like a 706.

I know everyone would like a sealed Penn 706 but really the Van Staal is likely the closest anyone's going to come to that. Really that's just a sealed Crack/Luxor. All of the added engineering, CNC machining and seals and what not added drive up the cost. Its not going to be any easier or cheaper to similarly transform the Penn.

Ok ok ok...

Non-sealed it is. I have been dunking my z's for a while, I usually break down, clean, and re-grease/oil every week so having a sealed reel isn't too big a deal to me, I enjoy it.

I don't think the infinite a/r would be a problem though, my slammers are not sealed and I don't see a problem with good maintenance.

Penn started selling a drag knob seal that I have put on my all my reels, not a complete seal but does a good job, I guess an improvement on that seal would suffice.

One more thing I neglected to mention, the side plate...It has to be metal. I have hunted down as many metal side plates as I possibly could because the plastic ones just make my blood boil.

That about does it though...lets DO THIS!! haha

[ATheall]

Metal side plates would be easy.

If you're constantly dunking the reel, infinite A/R bearings become finicky. They don't like to be contaminated.

One thing I would do is eliminate the on/off switch for the A/R, which is easily done and probably lowers the overall cost as it eliminates some small parts.

One might be able to use a stronger ratchet with more teeth as well for a little less backplay, but again you start to talk about driving up the cost.

Also, parts interchangability with the Penns would be a huge plus so you wouldn't want to really re-engineer much of anything. Penn has stopped making many of the parts so you could also supply the parts for used reels through the same manufacturer overseas.

Anyone have any experience with foreign manufacturing? I'm sure the big obstacle would be the minimum number of reels you'd have to guarantee in order for them to tool up.