Magseal oil refill on a Daiwa Certate

Daiwa's Magseal oil technology has its upside and downside. The obvious benefit is that it provides advance sealing technology with minimal to zero friction. The downside is that it can sometimes become messy after long periods of use and that it's supposed to be maintenance free but it's not quite the case being maintenance free as the magseal oil tend to dry up over time as seen with this other Certate.

Daiwa do not sell magseal oil to anyone as they are a proprietary technology. It is also true that you can't use any 'science kit' ferro fluid or mix-your-own-laser-printer-toner as replacement magseal oil due to unknown lubrication fluid as well as particle size used in those kit.

After rounds of testing done, I've managed to get my hands on suitable 'brew' as a magseal replacement oil. Tweaks were made to the 'brew' for a less messy affair and possibly longer service life.

This is the Daiwa Certate test mule which also had a messy magseal unit dried up for some time. It's even got a dead line roller bearing and replacement bearing arrived in time for a fix.

New line roller bearing ready to be installed. Magseal oil dried up on this rough and noisy Certate.

New bearing packed with marine grease for long life.

Already dried up long ago, degreased and contact cleaned ready for a new injection of custom brew magseal oil.

Dried up gap visible between the magnet unit and rotor collar.

Custom brew magseal oil ready to be injected.

Just a squirt. That's what she said. Custom brew quickly fills up the void. Excess can be seen outside the magnet.

Messy affair no more as this custom brew is designed to stay put where it's supposed to be.

Smooth as a new Daiwa Certate. 

This Certate's been fished for a while now and no reports of rough cranking nor messy affair around the magseal unit anymore.

In the event that you need to top up your magseal oil, do send me your reel for a special brew fix. You can find me at Anglers Central.

Dog don't wanna fight

What do angler's do in between seasons? Some scratch the itch by means of locally stocked pay ponds. Some go chasing after fish elsewhere. Some play with their tackle, pimping. This owner decided to make sure his tackle is in battle ready condition. A Daiwa Saltiga Z6500H Dogfight, built like a tank, for the most part at least.

As shown here, dogplay vs dogfight.

This generation of Saltiga is packed with seals. Seals everywhere to keep them nasty salty water at bay. There are plenty of smart designs built into this reel and there are also some not so perfect solutions which can be frustrating for top dollar reel like this. We'll start with the handle.

Top, blue pointer, rubber seal to keep the knob bearings spinning happy. Simple solution that just works. Bearings are both spinning happy. Bottom, precision machined for snug bearing fitment.

Up next, line roller. The part where there's most exposure to water. 2 rubber seals to protect the bearings. On top of that, Daiwa did good by using machined stainless steel shaft for outright durability. Shimano on the other hand have been using hardened aluminum across the entire '08 Stella SW range. The aluminum shaft regularly experience premature wear failure or damages sustained on reel sizes over 6000-8000. Shimano probably noticed this weakness by the number of replacement parts ordered and replaced the part with a stainless steel version for their '13 Stella SW models.

Top, machined stainless steel shaft for durability. Machine fit into bail wire resulting in lesser individual parts and lower chances of failure. Bottom, 2 rubber seals sandwiching 2 bearings within the line roller cylinder.

Moving towards the shaft, we have not 2 but 3 rubber seals for the spool seat cylinder. 1 rubber seal seated inside the spool seat cylinder to seal between the cylinder and the main shaft. 2 rubber seals outside of the cylinder to seal off any water intrusion into the spool core where the drag system is housed.

Top left, spool seat cylinder. Top right, 2 seals to seal off bottom of the spool drag system. Bottom, inner rubber seal for the main shaft.