Conquest of Gold Member

How do you pimp a reel that's already as groovy looking as a Gold Member? Inject some contrast and remove some gold to give prominence to it's flashy golden bits!

Gold Member in question here is the Shimano Calcutta Conquest. A new reel out of the box and yet old news as they've recently just announced an updated Calcutta Conquest for 2014 which will be available by the end of the first quarter.

Again, the pimped bits were all year end sales opportunities just like the Daiwa Tatula pimp up process. Bits of carbon fiber complimented by black and gold trim, black anodized parts and most importantly, hybrid ceramic bearings for some extra spinning momentum and distance.

Vanity shot of all the pimpy bits ready to be loaded into this Gold Member. A nice mash-up different brands and parts.

I'm starting to appreciate more and more of Shimano's reel designs that allows you to easily swap out parts as replacement or upgrades. To swap out the free spool support bearings, all you need is a just a tweezer. You don't even need to whip out any screw driver. Kudos to Shimano!

Bearings replaced without lifting a screw driver. Most tweezers would be able to pick out the pentagon shaped spring wire retainer. Top: bearing tucks inside SVS brake access spool cage. Bottom: unscrewing the mechanical brake knob reveals the other spool support bearing.

As usual, I would give any new reel a nice coating of marine grease all over internally to give it that extra layer of protection to dispel water. I find it rather critical for my application of not just fresh water but also salt water exposure to my reels. This Shimano Calcutta Conquest comes with pretty beefy multi-disc drag system and yet very smooth. It's a tad dry on stock and additional drag grease can be added for the extra smoothness. The drag system design looks like it can easily take larger dimension discs without any problems and I suspect the Ocea Jigger discs are also compatible. Time will tell and I will give it a try when it's time to swap them out to smooth drags.

Gold member's gearbox exposed, nicely lathered with salt water grease for protection. Wet drag washers a tad too dry for my liking. A few trips in and I'll swap them out with smooth drags in custom sizes for stronger stopping power.

The handle swap is more of a cosmetic job and a little bit of a weight reduction using carbon fiber handle. I opted for the swept handle with black anodized star drag and foam knobs with gold accents to match the grooviness of the gold theme.

Black and Gold. Knobs and handle's a custom chop job from 2 different brands. Not in favour of the red bits but not a deal breaker too until I find something suitable. This is a 98mm length handle and recently there's a longer version of 108mm which will work better with stronger cranking power.

Tramp stamp on the outside of what to expect inside.

A nicely designed & built reel, once again yet to wet the lines with mouth watering looks. All I need now is a decent trip to put this Gold Member to the test to see if the bling pimpness would be able to help lure in some victims.

RP Custom bearing tuning for some speed!

A friend sent me 3 of his bait casting reels for a quick pimp up with hybrid ceramic bearings and tune up for that extra bit of speed. The bait casters were already dressed to the nines with a variety of pimpy exterior option parts. All they need now are some speedy hybrid ceramic bearings.

Enter RP Custom hybrid ceramic bearings, new kid on the block when it comes to bearings. Casters rejoice! They are designed mostly for speed and quality rating of ABEC7 specifically for bait caster spools. There are 4 different pairs to cover most popular bait casters out there. The bearings' loaded with light oil and unshielded for maximum speed. The rubber shields are separately packed in the event that you opt for protection and durability by packing grease in instead, the choice is yours. We will be ditching the shields for these bait casters are they are looking for some speed.

Separately packed rubber shields, simple graphical instructions, Japanese mumbo jumbo & nifty stickers for bragging rights.

Most of Shimano's recent bait casters design uses a pair of similarly sized bearings for their spool, which makes a lot more sense when it comes to production.

First one to get speedy RP Custom hybrid ceramic bearings, the Shimano Scorpion DC. One on the DC brake side and another on the mechanical brake side, both bearings are similar in dimension and works for most Shimano baitcasters.

Daiwa on the other hand uses 3 different sized pairings across their popular bait casters, probably due to their innovative design variation of the magforce braking system as well as the variety of bait caster categories for a variety of exclusive applications.

Daiwa Millionaire SW pimped up feels more like a Zillionaire, small bearing on the magforce side and the bigger one's on the spool support gearbox side held in place with a pin. A custom pin remover is needed here to remove the pin so not to damage the shaft.

As for the Shimano Calcutta Conquest, one on the mechanical brake side and the other's tucked under the spool support cage where the SVS brake adjustments can be access.

Nice touch on the stickers for bragging rights on what's inside.

Shimano bait casters are the easiest to swap out the spool bearings due to it's standardized designs while the Daiwas as well as some Abu Garcia bait casters requires a custom bearing pin remover in order to replace one of the spool support bearings.

All in all, 3 bait casters ready for some speedy action and these RP Custom bearings give much more bang for your buck compared to some of the older bigger brands out there and they seem to be pretty good upgrades to get that extra bit of speed. Word is from some folks is that they feel that it casts 'better' than stock bearings. I'll check in with some seasoned casters to get some thorough feedback if available.