Tatula to the chop shop!

Year end festivities usually means sales and stock clearance, a global phenomenon and especially ubiquitous in the online shopping world. What we have here is a hot new product and some hotter new pimp-up parts to go with it. This hotly anticipated Daiwa Tatula's a combination of everything that works from Daiwa's arsenal of tech innovation and most noticeably the refinement of its previously less than perfect t-wing into the latest TWS incarnation that 'seems' to work, conceptually. The Tatula needs no further introduction as it has been very much dissected and every bit explored by most authoritative anglers out there.

We're here to talk about this virgin bait caster heading straight to the chop-shop with a set of hot purple aluminium pimpin parts as well as a limited edition Studio Composite carbon swept handle + silver carbon fiber handles. Hotter still, they were all on some kind of offer.

Here's one for the 'fresh out of the box' look.

Juicy purple pimpin bits bulging with anticipation to get bolted on.

Upon removal of the entire gearbox side, out comes the main gear and drag stack. Again, a well known Daiwa trickery in designing a smooth drag system, a combination of just one carbon fiber drag washer (not shown) and a second 'red' coloured wet drag washer which looks suspiciously a lot like engine manifold gasket sheets.

Level wind pawl housing cap removed, purple pimpin cap in. Note the red drag washer above.

Mechanical brake cap in boring black, swapped out with purple bits. Remember to swap out the friction sheet.

There's something quite curious about the drag stack. Typically, a drag disc is just a thin sheet of metal about 1mm thick sandwiching washers in between. The first/only disc on the Tatula is over 3mm thick and rather heavy. I might be wrong but, the only explanation I can fathom out from this is that Daiwa uses existing parts from their large inventory bins and as a value reel, there isn't a need for multi-layered drag discs and washers like higher end models. Hence the one and only fat drag disc in place of possibly 2-3 discs thickness.

 

A quick peek into the gearbox and lather it with saltwater grease goodness for some protection and longevity. No surprises here with some plastic bits for free spool release and the TWS flipping trigger witchery.

Purple purple everywhere! When dealing with aluminium hex screws, best to use high quality drivers as the slightest slippage would damage the screws and you'll spend donkey years trying to remove it.

All pimped-up and hasn't even seen the light of day. Soon!

Then comes the delayed RPCustom hybrid ceramic bearings, arrived slightly later and yet in time for it to be loaded into the reel before the reel gets wet.

The swap was easy on the magforce side (right) but complicated on the gearbox side, the gearbox aluminum casing needs to be removed to access the spool bearing on the mechanical brake side. Unlike Shimano's convenient design where you can access the bearings by removing the mechanical brake knob and a retainer wire.

Overall, promising looking reel, time will tell if this would be the go to reel as a daily beater hauling up big fish after big fish.

Pre-loved Stella, suicidal Stella

Before my trip to Maldives, I managed to acquire myself a pre-loved Shimano Stella 10000SW specifically for GT popping. According to the owner, he's used the reel only on one occasion for GT popping, christened in Maldives too.

The condition of this reel is like new except for some minor dings and scratches here and there. Not a deal breaker or concerns that will affect the quest to tame some angry GTs.

As usual, no reel will escape my attempt to strip it down for a thorough check, grease up and pimp it to be battle ready for 7 days of Maldivian Madness.

Looks perfectly clean and virgin like. Spins like one too, creamy and smooth.

First discovery, line rollers, some wear and tear but nothing major. Just need a quick bearing smoothness check, clean up and greased up.

Line rollers, the first place to check if the reel's been well maintained or bashed. Looks like it's been fishing straight out of the box with very little grease and some bashing wear and tear on the aluminum shaft (red pointer) that holds the entire line roller assembly in place.

Once cleaned off gunk and old grease, in goes loads of salt water grease packing it to all available crevices taking up any space available to not have much chance for salt water intrusion. Note that there are no water proofing seals on this 08 Stella.

Moving my way down the reel, the bail arm mechanism cover. Nothing major but gunk collected over screws and ports that might corrode parts over time if left unattended.

Most screws on both sides have collected some unwanted gunk. Just a quick spray of contact cleaner, brushed off the gunk and grease it up for some protection.

Next up, moving in towards the rotor retainer nut and bearings. Nothing much to see here, just some filth and cleaning up would do.

Rotor retainer nut needs some cleaning, bearing rotates like a virgin, smooth and creamy.

The gearbox shows signs that grease has been injected through the service port and hoping for it to be spread all over the entire gearbox. Doesn't work for me, unfortunately. There are no quick and dirty way to do this but to be thorough by stripping it down and examine parts for wear and tear.

No deal breaker, no surprises, and no major wear and tear bits. Gear tooth are all in excellent condition. All internal bearings are working as intended. Floating and sliding shafts are all in excellent condition. Just some grease shoved about where it's of no use. A thorough brushing of grease over every bit would do.

The last part, drag system. Again, they look like they were fishing the minute it's out of the box with very little drag grease visible. Just plenty of carbon gunk all over the system. Not a bad sign, just a sign that it's been properly tested with angry GTs.

Carbon + drag grease gunk everywhere. They come off rathers easily like strands of elastic jello.

Plenty of gunk everywhere. Once it's cleaned, the system needs to be greased thoroughly before piecing it back together.

Top stack and drag clicker housing also needs to be thoroughly greased to displace any possible salt water intrusion.

Greased all over, even the insides of the drag clicker housing needs some grease.

The reel was nicely matched with an FCL Labo ultimate boat casting heavy rod. We were tossing 120-160g poppers and stick baits all throughout 7 days till I can't feel my arms anymore. On top of that, I've also had several near misses with the bail arm closing in on me midway through a cast. By the 3rd day, the bail arm closed on me again and both my arms decided to behave like strangers and voluntarily let go of the rod.

My pre-loved Stella's became a suicidal Stella, rod and reel fell into the ocean and I can see it slowly sinking with my heart free-falling. I see my angling adventures flashing before my eyes as I wave goodbye to my biggest tackle investment... *glass shatters* Fortunately, we have super deckie who was lightning quick in tossing his cup of coffee, jumped in and save my rod and reel. Mighty mighty deck hands saved the day and a fat tip was parked aside for his heroic effort.

Upon recovering the rod and reel, I immediately took the reel off the rod and dunk it into a pail of fresh water in an attempt to flush out as much salt water as possible. After a couple of hours of soaking, the reel was back in action without fuss.

Once back home, I immediately strip the reel apart to check for any signs of rust. Luckily, no rust was found but water was everywhere, assuming fresh water in place of salt water after the bath.

Water was everywhere. Some gunk collected on the drag system as usual. Even the anti-reverse bearings' filled with water.

Not entirely a water proof/resistant reel even with it's rubber seals all over the place. I'm glad I rubbed it down thoroughly with salt water grease to displace as much water as it possibly can, or at least creating a sacrificial protective layer.

Gearbox: check, main gear:check, one-way bearing:check, worm gear: check. Water everywhere but no Mr. Rusty in sight, phew! Sacrificial grease protective layer works.

I can't risk having any rust forming anywhere and I've decided to strip the entire reel apart for a total ultrasonic cleaning bath.

What you see here are most mechanical parts that needs proper ultrasonic cleaning bath. They were left out to dry and a thorough brush down of saltwater grease before piecing them back together.

The culprit for the bail arm closure while casting could be caused by the auto-close wedge. I believe this is the reason why my pre-loved Stella became a suicidal Stella, something trippy and faulty in the system. Just casually leave the culprit out of the equation when piecing it back together and you won't have any attachment issues with any of them.

Nice to have on certain reels but can be a nuisance to some. For me, this is the culprit that made my pre-loved Stella a suicidal Stella.

All in all, an awesome reel that can take some serious GT bashing. When pieced together with nicely rubbed down lubrication, the reel was back to its normal virgin state, smooth and creamy. Once a suicidal Stella now fully rehabilitated without the trippy parts to being a healthy Stella once again.