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Random Quote: The sea was angry that day my friends, like an old man trying to return soup at a deli! ( George Costanza )
Been looking into line spooling machines to make my life a lot easier. Are there any affordable machines out there that I should know about? Anyone have any other tips? I am using Penn 750ssm's
There is a cheap Berkeley machine I bought for $23 on sale at Dicks 2 months ago. It works ok, but if you are handy you can make your own much better machine out of a few pieces of wood.
I'm a "cheap and simple guy"... I rig my spinning reels on the bottom half of a cheap rod (only 1 eye to go through) and run the line through the middle of a phone book. This gives me good tension when spooling and costs nothing. I don't think that I would save much time, if any, with a dedicated line spooler.
As a side note, I have made a line stripper by taking an empty spool and rigging a long bolt through it. This then goes into my power drill. I am able to strip the line off very quickly.
After 20 some years in the tackle biz. I changed careers a few years back..but before I left I made sure to grab a commercial linewinder from the shop I had been running before they went out of business.. Commercial machines are big $ new, but you may be able to pick one up used by checking shops going out of biz. or maybe upgrading..Maybe even Ebay.. Both Stren and Trilene (berkley) make comm. machines..I always liked the berkley "triwinder" over the stren machines, as it has less "guides" to weave the line thru..I always customized the machines in my shops, moving the line spool carriage into a straight line with the winder to avoid the guides completely... I have never used any of the little "home" versions, but they don't look like they would hold up long under heavy use..especially with big spools like a 750.. Sal has a good idea about trying to build one..they are basically sewing machine type motors with a foot pedal.. I think the toughest part to make would be the chucks that holds the spool tight and straight.. If anyone's interested, let me know and I will post some pics of my machine to give an idea of how its set up.
I take off the cage of the roller and slidethe spool of line in. Put it on a piece of cardboard and step on the handle to applie tension. Take a short stout rod, put the reel on. Thread the line down the rod and to the reel, tie a knot.
Spool away.
this one has no cage.
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"Give me your hungry, your tired your poor I'll pee on em
Thats what the statue of bigotry says
Your poor huddled masses, lets club em to death
And get it over with and just dump em on the boulevard"
-L.Reed
"If you don't like it, go to Russia" -Homer Simpson.
My cheap way to do it is to run a metal rod thru the spool of line then stick an tennis ball on the rod. Clamp this in a vice and squease down on the tennis ball to add tension. I then chuck up the appropriate size socket to fit the nut that holds the reel handle on. Get the drill out and spool em up. This has worked well for me.
After a lot of looking, i bought one from Triangle. it's expensive but Now i can really pack the line on tight. It really comes in handy with braid. i don't regret buying it and I could never justify the cost, but last week i stripped and re-wound 13 international penns, in one afternoon. Priceless.
I've been using the lathe end of my rodbuilding bench for years... The motor is an old sewing machine motor that drives a mandrel with a 1/2" Jacobs chuck on the end. The controller is the foot pedal that came with the sewing machine motor... I have acquired the shaft portion of every spinning reel that I (or my customers) use. When it's time to load line on a spinner, I chuck up the appropriate shaft, mount the spool on it, then tighten up the drag knob... Line is loaded up under tension almost faster than any commercial machine I've ever used. Removing line is done with an empty line spool (usually the 1/2 or 1lb size) mounted on a piece of fiberglass blank. After 15 or 20 spools of old line are loaded on the discard spool, it's tossed and another empty one is placed in service.
I keep 8 rods on my skiff for customers, along with at least one spare spool for every size reel so it's very handy to be able to load and un-load spools quickly and efficiently. That same bench with lathe setup allows me to build and wrap rods quickly as well...
If I have the time I'll post a few photos. The pictures are probably all anyone needs to set up their own machine...
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Tight Lines
Capt Bob LeMay
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Just an FYI... I would be VERY hesitant running line through a phone book. You are introducing fricton...which equals heat. Heat and mono or any kind of line, doesn't do a line good.
I picked up a "Super Triwinder for Stren" made by Triangle off e-bay a couple of years ago. I don't know how old it is or remember how much I paid although in was not cheap. Triangle has NO replacement parts for this machine. If the motor or some important part goes up your SOL. It took me several weeks to find a match for the belt. A plastic gear cracked, I had to mickey mouse it to get it working again. Make sure you can get parts for the older line winders. But I would buy another if the machine I have broke beyond repair.
It is amazing how creative you can get to address the single most dreaded part of fishing...stripping and spooling line. Our Triangle machines are the industry standard and they hold up under heavy use. Years ago only bait & tackle shops bought our equipment. Now avid anglers with lots of equipment see the value in doing it yourself. But for those who don't want to spend the money to buy a new machine, ebay is a great place to find a used one. Just make sure we have parts for it by calling our shop with the serial number. 888-656-6686. That's a better solution than trying to engineer one yourself.
Stripping line is the part that seemed to take the longest for me. I addressed that by just putting a section of 1 x 1 on a cordless drill. Tie the line to the 1 x 1 and strip the line off in seconds. To attach the 1 x 1 to the cordless drill, I take a 3" deck screw, cut the head off, put the screw in the drill chuck, and screw it into directly into the center of the end of the 1 x 1.
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Grady White SeaFarer 226 w/Yamaha F225 - SOLD
I made a hi-speed line stripper for about $2. I went to the hardware store, got some threaded rod, a few washers, a regular nut, and windnut. The threaded rod goes through an empty plastic spool, and then connected to a cordless drill.
I can strip the line off a Penn 50wide in a couple of minutes and it done effortlessly.
Line Spooling Machines...Any Thoughts?
