Rarenium C3000 salt prep

In comes an underrated reel for salt prep, the super light and ultra reliable Rarenium series. Apart from salt prep, the owner wants to up the drag on this for salt water species fight. So here goes.

Trusty light but strong reel.

Standard knob bearings in the enclosed area and teflon bushing towards the regularly exposed area. Bearings are fine and just need a new pack of marine grease. Additional grease packed around the teflon bushing grease to act as a redundant seal.

Even though it's shielded in the knob, additional marine grease packed in and around the screw for that added protection.

Stock drag's are fine but starting to dry up. Custom cut carbon sheets to match stock dimensions.

Drag system degreased before applying a new layer of drag grease.

Line laying roller system's dry but smooth. New packing of marine grease to fill all available space within the system.

Stock factory grease application isn't something to die for, everything looks new too.

A new and generous layer of Shimano's heavy grease covered all internal surfaces to displace water.

Old drags out, sturdier carbon drags in. Newly salt prep ready for small reef or pelagic species battle.

A rather straight forward salt prep for a trusty reel. This reel will most likely be used to target small reef or pelagics and will probably serve the owner very well over long periods of time if it is well taken care off.

Vanquish salt prep

Here's another rather new reel preparation for salt water bashing. The reel in question is a Shimano Vanquish, a medium heavy spin setup mostly for fresh water fishing and also occasional salt water assault on reef species. My cousin didn't want to take any chances and would like to prepare this reel for long life operation as well as beefed up drag upgrades.

Limited edition which comes with some handle bling.

First thing that needs some beefing up would be the well worn stock drags.

Knob bearings are still in good condition as it hasn't been exposed to much salt water yet. Best is to clean them out and pack them full with marine grease for maximum protection.

Knob shaft cleaned, bearings packed, ready to be reinstalled into the factory bling knob.

Line roller bearing's quite dry too as it's been fished a bit fresh out of the box. Bearings need to be cleaned out and loaded in with marine grease.

Line roller assembly also needs to be stuffed full with marine grease as the Vanquish uses only 1 bearing hence more space in the assembly.

Packed to the brim to prevent water intrusion.

The insides are a little dry. Typical of a factory reel.

Note how dry the main gear is? The Vanquish doesn't have rubber seals on the body housing to shield the main gear bearings, make shift prevention would work fine as it will not be exposed to direct water spray.

Main gear's coated with Shimano's heavy grease. Main gear bearing's generously covered with the heavy grease too.

One-way bearing's a little dirty, degreased, contact cleaned and re-oiled with one-way bearing oil for stopping efficiency.

Well used stock drags replaced with custom cut carbon drags for overall stopping performance and smoothness.

Prepped, beef up drag and ready for fresh or salt water assault.

Stock drag's bagged and to be returned together with a battle ready Vanquish for some light jigging. Overall, a very nice reel only second best to the Stella, much more hand me down techs than expected for a reel at this price point.

The Stella 1000FE ultralight greatness

A cousin of mine was recently introduced to lure fishing and was knee deep into the Japanese luring industry. This is for his ultralight setup and the regular go-to reel for our application is no other than a Shimano Stella 1000FE. Regular spool as opposed to the newly launched shallow spool which is more for the Japanese finesse market.

The stock reel is good and ready for battle out of the box but there's always room for improvement and slight pimpin.

Before serious action, the handle's already been pimped up with ZIP's aluminum knob.

First thing to get some TLC. Line roller assembly. Dry out of the box.

Packed with marine grease as the reel will be used for salt water application too.

Shimano's drag good out of the box, it can be made slightly stronger, smoother and more durable.

The usual suspects, carbon fiber drag sheets.

Cut to measure carbon fibre drag discs.

Nicely lathered with drag grease and ready to be reinstalled into the spool.

The insides are dry and needs plenty of marine grease coating for redundant protection.

As you can tell, this is a fairly straight forward preparation without much need for any inspection. Just packing and coating all the surfaces with marine grease for that added longevity and protection. As for the drag, it's an upgrade that's hard to ignore as the stock drag is good, just a little weak on power and durability. With carbon fiber drag discs, smoothness and power is ensured on top of durability.