My favorite so far is the Maorisub Dentex. It is delrin enclosed by stainless rods. Also unlike most reels the drag cannot lock the reel and once set the drag doesn't deviate from it's setting at all.
How many feet of line do you require on it?
Do you know specifically how the drag design is different from other reels? Not sure about the amount of line. I won't need much for diving a short gun around relatively shallow inshore structure. More when offshore.
I hadn't thought of it. Probably possible to some extent.
haha, u lurk around waiting for just such questions dont you..
Can't help it. I started a new thread for any input that you guys can provide on reel design, if you were starting froma blank slate.
For specific situations, I will want to use a reel on the carbon fiber gun that I'm building. For this gun, I'm talking about diving around oil rigs, but I also use my shorter gun around bridges and jettys, with lots of surface structure that can entangle a float line. Sure, I could buy a reel, but where's the fun in that. <img src= " height="23" srcset="https://spearfishing.world/forum/images/smilies/emojione/1f606@2x.png 2x">
Unfortunately, I'm almost totally ignorant on the subject. So I would like to hear any and all thoughts on what makes a particularly good or a bad reel.
1. Orientation (horizontal vs. vertical)?
2. Design - open, vs the old "Wally Potts" enclosed design, or others
3. Materials? (Plastic, aluminum, or stainless would all be possible)
4. Line guides (yes / no)?
5. Drag details?
Any pictures of specific brands or features (good or bad) would be great. And remember, like a home made gun, this is a "one off". The design doesn't have to lend itself to mass production. Thanks in advance.
How difficult would it be to make a reel?
Now we're talking!
I can't really speak intelligently on the merits of float line vs. reel for general applications, but a reel seems like it might be handy when I dive around the bridge piers and jettys where the wind and waves can wrap a surface line around the structure.
So if we wanted to build a reel, what would it look like? New thread Dan?
The shot is right behind my hand. I stuck my middle finger in it to get a grip on the fish.
Here's the 54 pound mahi that Don was asking about. It was taken this summer.
The mahi was shot with my little 52" reel gun.
The tuna was shot with my new 68" tuna hybrid looking carbon wrapped gun. I'm very happy with it, handles 5 bands with no accuracy issues and I shoot it with 1 hand. It's the top gun in the picture below. Actually all three guns pictured were used with great success this weekend.
141 pound yellowfin taken this weekend off Louisiana
This thread is truly a wealth of information. Thank you Steve.
once the epoxy cures the filler piece is trimmed and the stock is sanded down smooth in the drum sander. a .0375 thick piece of abs is cut to 1.125'' wide by 2.50'' long, it is used to reenforce the front of the enclosed track and is epoxied in place again overnight.
Is the .0375" thick ABS a typo? It looks much thicker in the pictures. I'm thinking maybe 3/8", which would be 0.375"?
Tonight I will try to join the two pieces, and if that works, tomorrow I can start laying up carbon fiber.
Failure or learning opportunity depends on your state of mind, I guess. The epoxy was taking a long time to cure when the temp got in the 50's Friday night. It was a calculated risk, but I positioned my halogen work lights a little ways away to warm everything a little.
I guees I put them too close, and the wax partially melted in one spot. I think I can fix it though. And at least I know an easy way to melt out the wax core when I'm done.
One question on the process - how did you align the bottom radius on that .5" plug strip? Just eyeball it? Guess it's not that crucial to be lined up perfectly center.
If you had the foresight to make a "dummy" piece the same width as the stock (while planing or routing it to final dimensions), then you could cut a groove in the dummy piece while cutting the groove in the real stock. Insert the thin strip in the groove in the dummy piece, flip it over (end for end, not side to side), and it would be perfectly centered without moving the router fence. And would give you something much safter to hold.
I have a thought that's probably crap, but here goes.
I think that one advantage to a hybrid design is that it "potentially" allows more freedom of distribution for the gun's mass. I think that a gun will experience less muzzle jump if there is weight concentrated in the muzzle. It's the old principal of the ice skater spinning slowly with her arms extended, and spinning faster with her arms tucked close.
For a typical wood gun, both the buoyancy and the mass of the gun are uniformly distributed throughout the wood. If you try to add more weight up front, it gets muzzle heavy unless you add additional buoyancy. With a hybrid, it is possible to provide buoyancy using a lightweight air filled tube in the middle, and independently position ballast in the muzzle and / or butt. That is one of the main reasons that I am playing around with the hollow carbon fiber construction.
To answer the original question, I ordered one each Riffe Standard and Rife Competitor butt pads. They do appear to attach to the same size stock protrusion, that being about 1-1/8" diameter by a bit over 2" long. So they would be interchageable in that respect, though the outside shapes are clearly very different.
Don't do it. Flair it out and wrapped in carbon. Look at my wahoo toothpick. Your method of using electrical tape instead of heat shrink makes this very easy, and the end result is WAAAYYYY better looking.
Okay. I'm taking my gun guru's advice here and making the flaired butt integral to the stock. We'll see . . .
A quick progress update:
I have successfully molded and shaped a wax core about 36" long to form the hollow front half of the gun. I have also shaped a short piece of teak to be the solid core for the rear part of the gun where the trigger mech, handle, reel, etc will attach. Tonight I will try to join the two pieces, and if that works, tomorrow I can start laying up carbon fiber.
Wonderful thread Steve!
I've been shooting the conveyor belt target that Jeff made for a while now and am very happy with it. Don't know about a thicker one - it might be hard to pull the shaft out if it got past the flopper but didn't go all the way through. The one I have just takes a firm tug.
I notice in the first two pictures, that there is a gap underneath the shaft, for a few inches, just in front of the trigger mech. Why?
What are you guys using for a target? I made one from a piece of cheap conveyor belt, and it works OK. This is the stuff I used:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Conveyor-b…ain_0?hash=item563111cf42
The target is just a strip of the conveyor belt about 7' long. The top edge is looped around a piece of 3" PVC pipe, capped at both ends, to act as a float. The belt just hangs down from that, with a few dive weights on the bottom to hold it in position.
I've only used it once, so Chad may be able to add more info. Shafts shot with 2-bands would penetrate the belt, but stop at the shark fins. Shafts with more bands would sometimes go all the way through, but the belting takes much of the energy out and the shooting line stops the shaft.
I have a heavier piece (twice as thick) that I have been wanting to try.
Can you use the "snap shot" tool in Adobe to copy & paste the logo into MS Paint, or some other similar program which can save in a jpg format? That's how I get my CAD drawings to show here.
. . . it might actually be a good time to put a little time in on the rollergun I've been working on.
Are you growing the teak from a sapling? <img src= " height="23" srcset="https://spearfishing.world/forum/images/smilies/emojione/1f606@2x.png 2x"> Let's see some progress pics!
i just want to point out that it is not fair to post such a beautiful gun resting on what is clearly a beautiful wooden bench with cup holders and artistic cutaway and not even discuss that as well
did you make the bench too?
Wood Guy may be offline for a little while. His house is right smack in the projected path of Ida at the moment, so I imagine that he's pretty busy. Hopefully, the storm will continue to weaken.
He didn't make the swing, but it is nice. It was custom made by a guy on the Eastern shore of Mobile Bay, Alabama. All of the wood is cypress, secured with stainless screws, and the cup holder folds up for a full bench, or down to expose the blue heron cut out. I have one just like it with a fleu-de-lis in place of the heron. If you send the guy a picture, he can make almost any design.
