Twinpower becomes Thick-power-less

Remember this Twinpower? It's back and apparently with upgraded carbontex drags which was matched and fit at a local tackle shop. Something curious happened after the fitment as the drag force was significantly reduced with newly installed carbontex drags.

So now it's back here for a check up on what's causing this mysterious loss of drag force. Quick inspection shows that even when the drag knob was locked down, drag was at best 50% its intended force. Carbontex packaging says that it's for a Daiwa reel, nothing wrong with that so long as the dimensions fit as there are far too many reels out there with overlapping drag dimensions used.

Note the Carbontex packaging, Daiwa models.

First hint. Note how the retainer wire doesn't slip into the spool housing slot? Also note the rubber gasket's muffin top squeeze? If fitment is correct, you shouldn't have this issue.

Muffin top imprint still stuck on the rubber gasket. Something must be bloated or wrongly installed inside the drag stack.

First of the drag discs removed (right), compared to the original drag disc (left). Visibly larger in diameter.

When the top 2 drag stack was removed, it's clear that there's a problem with the fitment. The carbontex drag was a tad too big to fit into the aluminum drag disc plate.

When inspected sideways, you can see that the carbontex was being forced into the aluminum disc plate, hence the bent edges. Even with the bent edges, the carbontex couldn't fit into the aluminum drag plates.

Carbontex outer diameter in 26.25mm.

Maximum diameter for the aluminum drag plate is at 26.02.

In order for the carbontex drag to fit, it needs to be trimmed down a little. But that's not the whole story for a properly functioning drag system.

Thickness of original drag disc. 0.47 being heavily used and worn off quite a bit. They usually come in a thickness of slightly over 0.5mm.

Custom matched carbontex used, more than twice the thickness of the original drag disc. This is the first sign that it's causing the boated top stack and also preventing the drag system from properly generating friction.

Here's how thick the top stack would be with 2 original drag discs installed. Note how both aluminum plates fit within its detent slots to generate friction.

Now looking at the thickness of the stack with both thicker carbontex drags installed (left). Note how the left most aluminum drag plate detent (blue) doesn't sit into the right most aluminum plate detent (red)? This in effect removes the function to generate friction between these 2 aluminum plates. The right picture shows with 1 thicker carbontex drag and 1 original drag installed, the metal plates only manages to catch less than 50% of it's intended detent contact area. Barely there, not exactly ideal either.

Moving towards the bottom most drag, another curious discovery. Mismatched dimension of carbontex drag was used.

Bottom most carbontex drag disc (front) stacked over the original drag disc (back).

Carbontex drag in its place at the bottom of the spool. Wrong inner and outer diameter.

This is obviously no fault of carbontex, but a rather poor solution provided by the person at this local tackle shop. Carbontex may not have provided a pre-set pack for this reel but they do have individual drag discs to be sold if you know what you need. It takes a bit more effort to match the right drag discs dimension or some experience needed if you were to meddle with some modifications of your own.

For this instance, it may take a while for Carbontex to ship the right drags over and the owner of this reel will be heading off to battle real soon. The best bet would be to custom cut them from carbon drag sheets.

Carbon drag sheets in various thickness to match.

Custom cut carbon disc (bottom) vs ripped original carbon disc (top, red).

Perfect fitment from custom cut drag discs.

Top drag discs, original above and custom cut below.

Snug fitment and rotates freely in its place without binding. That's key to drag operation.

Top most drag disc fits perfectly before the top aluminum detent discs is installed in place.

When this Thick-power-less reel was put back together with the right bits, it's now back to being a Twinpower ready for business. The drag force was immediately restored if not improved over the worn out original drag discs. No more embarrassing muffin top too!

Twinpower 12k GT bashing

A friend checked this Twinpower SW12000 in for a routine maintenance and check up before heading off in search for some bruiser GTs. This reel's survived some monster hauling somewhere in the pacific and will soon be tasked to fight some bruisers somewhere around the Andamans.

The reel's very smooth but a tad rough indicating some needed TLC inside.

First rust bust, crank handle screw. Rust deposits found, Wire brushing and contact clean is all it needs.

Next, some pitting found on the anodized coating surrounding the base of the knob shaft. No rust found on the knob bearings but they are rough and dry. To be queued for ultrasonic bath together with some other dirty parts.

With numerous locked-drag GT bruising previously, the drag's taken a toll and signs of fatigue shows in the form of excessive carbon deposits collected within the drag system. The carbon drags all look well worn, thin and frail. One of the discs looked like it's starting to tear.

Orange, plenty of carbon deposits. Red, base carbon disc's about to tear soon.

Stock drags thickness for this reel are usually within 0.5mm thick with a variance of around 0.05mm. 3 of the 4 discs are a little too thin to last. The base drag (lower right) registers a 0.54mm for a drag's supposedly stock thickness of 0.7mm.

Carbon deposits built up in the spool. Before (left), and after (right) cleaning.

The existing drags would most probably last another short session of GT bashing and would eventually need to be replaced. So a clean up and new lubrication would do for now until the owner gets himself some replacement discs.

The last act before going for a full replacement. New drag grease coats the entire drag system.

Line roller's free spinning on bone dry bearings. Line laying roller shaft screw and retainer screw seems to have some rust deposits too.

Top left, tiny bit of rust on the screw. Top right, rust juice found on the bail wire end cup. Lower left, some nasty bruiser must have did this light binding damage. Lower right, rust all around the bearing and spacer sleeve. Bearings seem to be spinning rough but ok. We'll later see if they are just external damages only.

This reel's been serviced before previously by another provider. Some of the parts were installed (green) wrong side up while some light damages found on the rotor retainer nut (red) as a result of tool slippage. Light damages are ok but if there are burrs that sticks out too far, it needs to be removed in order for the rubber seal to be seated properly as well as the plastic cover to snugly fit over the nut.

Moving further inwards, the one way bearing's gotten some light rust build up on the roller pins (red). Old grease (blue) need to be completely removed to make way for new coat of marine grease.

Rough parts ready to be ultrasonic cleaned. Bottom, round one done, on to the second round.

The pinion gear seems to be well worn with the uniform wear pattern found across the main gear contact patch. Nothing out of the ordinary, no signs of premature wear. Ok to go GT bashing.

As for some of the bearings, they seem to have suffered external rust damages with little roughness found when spinning. They too are ok for GT bashing. Just need new packing of marine grease.

The balls and retainer looks clean and smooth after a general visual and spin inspection. Off it goes contact cleaned and ready for marine grease packing.

The housing's brushed and contact clean in preparation for a new coat of marine grease.

Grease packing in action (top left). Top right, grease loaded bearing in place for line roller shaft. Bottom, marine grease packed system occupying all the space available. No space left for water intrusion.

Upon brushing and contact cleaning the bail arm, just pack some additional grease around the screw and lock system as a redundancy for corrosion prevention.

Another trusty and super reliable Shimano Twinpower that's taken plenty of bruising and yet with very little issues found. Another win for Twinpower against the Stella. Off this goes to some GT bashing in the Andamans.

Twinpower Power Change

The time has come again for me to part ways with another one of my trusty Shimano Twinpower. We've had some fairly good run of hauling Spanish Macks and GTs with this reel without breaking a sweat.

To ensure a proper and smooth power change, a thorough strip down check and service will be needed for it to be in its tip top condition for the enjoyment of the new owner. On top of that, this reel's been pimped up with some Stella bits and fully decked out with hybrid ceramic bearings.

All exposed for visual and fitment checks.

Drags were in excellent condition. Just need a clean up and new coat of fresh drag grease application. All other fitment were tight with little to no free play. Some bearings were starting to run a little light and needs new grease packing. One way bearing were also in excellent condition with consistent stopping power with zero creep.

Bearings are all in excellent condition. Old grease removed to be packed in with fresh new marine grease for longevity and peace of mind from rust and corrosion. Main & pinion gears are in excellent condition without any signs of premature wear or tear. Impressive, given that I've fished quite hard with this reel battling drag peeling macks and school GTs.

As usual, line roller's dried up from plenty of speedy rolling action. Bearings' in excellent condition with no signs of rust nor corrosion. A clean up and marine grease packing is in order.

Cleaned up line roller, marine grease packed and ready for reassembly.

Tight as ever. Ready for the enjoyment of the new owner.

An excellent value reel as it's got plenty of trickle down goodies from the 2008 Stella. On most occasion, I noticed that the Twinpower generally has less teething or reliability issues compared to the Stellas.

As of this post, Shimano's started to showcase the 2015 Twinpower model on their Japanese website in preparation for the debut at the Japan Fishing Festival 2015. It's got plenty of trickle down goodies from both 2013 SW / 2014 FI Stellas and some fancy new stronger alloy material tech termed 'Hagane'. Indicative pricing show's that they are maintaining the same retail price as the old model. Can't wait to get my hands on the new model.

Slow pitch & long fall jigging at Pulau Jarak.

To usher in 2014, we kicked it off to a jiggy good start at Pulau Jarak. A 3 days 2 nights easy going trip with a bunch of like minded enthusiastic anglers. It's been a while since the last time I set foot on the all too familiar GT Chaser with its leathery clean and hardy deck. We kept reminding ourselves that every trip to Pulau Jarak will never be the same and all we can do is to be prepared for almost anything and everything.

This time around, we managed to have some good fun with a variety of feeding frenzies and the occasional awkward deafening silence of no hook ups for hours.

We did however manage to document some interesting catches. Here's what we call slow pitch and also long fall jigging. A technique used in combination of the target species, jigs used, and most importantly to pace ourselves between the intense high pitch jigging.

On the first day jigging at depths of around 60-80meters, to our surprise the only fish that was fond of our sexy jigs were the GTs even around the seabed. GTs after GTs. The fun wore out rather quickly as it wasn't fun trying to haul GTs up from great depths. No other species were around or taking out jigs, we'll just have to put on a brave face, keep calm and keep cranking.

Majorcraft Giant Killing's jig rod fully loaded. This rod is a force to be reckoned with.

Xesta jig deemed too sexy for this GT, worked at moderate speed.

Another on falls for the Xesta, also worked at moderate speeds taken on the fall about 5 meters off the seabed.

Double hook up on Shout jigs. Stay and Width jigs. Worked slow taken on the fall.

The Gees kept hitting, this one went for the new Xesta Agraam, worked fast and was stopped like hitting a freight train.

Up close of the Xesta Agraam speed jig.

On day 2, we went popping around Pulau Jarak shallows and yielded just 1 take. Weird GTs here taking jigs and not poppers or stick baits. For hours we went around and about, no more hook ups. We then headed a little bit further out to deeper waters in search of demersals. Again, nothing was taking our jigs.

Without further delays, we headed to deeper jigging grounds. First stop, a notorious spot called 'Hutan Melintang' as we couldn't believe that not a single fish was interested in our jigs. An infamous spot known for its wide variety of predators namely razor sharp toothed gangsters like sharks, barracudas & spanish macks that just can't help confiscating our jigs and hooks.

As usual, another surprise for a few of us, a mate got the first take and felt like it was a snag. He kept cranking and didn't budge. Another mate got another take, this time it took some drag and immediately after, I was on too! The first fish finally realised it's been hooked up and started to dart about taking drag. And all of a sudden, all 3 of us couldn't feel anything anymore and started retrieving our lines. It felt like it was all tangled up and an occasional tug here and there. We then noticed that there was a school of cobia gangsters, jigs in mouth, swimming up towards us and the boat. The school took notice and immediately scrambled, made a sharp turn parallel to the boat tangling up a few more lines as they go. 2 of us lost our fish and only the first one survived and managed to land the whopper of a cobia of about 30kgs!

On the next drop with a new jig tied on, a quick take and feisty fight ensues.

This small cobia took fancy to my Xesta Agraam jig and was no match for the Majorcraft Giant Killing rod.

After the cobia frenzy drought hit us hard for the next few hours hauling only one grouper and another tiny spanish mack. Before the sun sets, we headed off to anchor at Pulau Sembilan (P9) slowly winding down the day before night falls. A nicely semi sheltered spot famous for its big schools of giant hard tail scads. We quickly switched to our favourite ultra light jigging gear Evergreen Temujin Spider matched with a Shimano Stella 1000FE. We managed to fill up all of our ice boxes and witness the occasional spectacular queen fish aerial fights.

Full loaded Temujin Spider. This is no giant hard tail scad fight.

Feisty little queen fish put up a massive fight taking my IMA Gun 12g for a good run.

And another bigger queenie guaranteeing a good run on the ultra light tackle.

All in all, another signature appeal of Pulau Jarak's unpredictability and yet hauling quite a bit of fish (mostly hard tail scads). We'll be back to keep Pulau Jarak's reputation in check till the next time.

Photos courtesy of Tackle Source.