Carbontex + 6500 Expedition = ?

[DaFrogman]

Having heard about possible issues with the stock pure carbon drags on the Saltiga 6500 Expedition and its brethen, I set about swapping the stock drags on my new toy with a Carbontex set.

Smoothdrags provided the right set and they arrived PDQ (Pretty Damn Quick) two days ago.... so tonight I decided to do a bit of baseline testing...

Everything was measured directly off the reel without a rod.... at first I just latched the scales to the tieoff mounting on my coldbox and put a tray with hydraulic fluid and 2-stroke oil on top to make sure it was weighed down..... BUT, over 18lbs of drag, the whole thing began lifting off the floor, so I moved outside and secured the scales to the tow eye on my Nissan Patrol....figured that if that moved, I might as well give up....

I first tested the stock drags and I must admit, I chickened out at 45lbs of drag on my spring scales with about 1.25 turns of the knob still left to go..... I did 4 pulls on the reel, pulling only about 1.5m of line out each time. All the tests were conducted using the No.20 Seaguar FC jig topshot I had put on the reel, tied to an Owner 3/0 Snap Swivel.

About 15 minutes of disassembly, degreasing, regreasing and reassembly later, I had installed the Carbontex replacements. I used Cals Grease on the drags, coating them and wiping the grease off till the drag looked dry. I noticed that the Carbontex drags came in two distinct patterns, a very fine and slightly thinner weave of Carbonfibre cloth and a thicker and rougher one.

Two washers were of the fine weave and the other three were of the rougher weave. I used the finer weaves for the bottom and top drag washers that came into contact with the bottom of the drag housing in the spool and the top end cap in the housing.

I also painted a very fine coating of grease on the sides of the housing and the endcap. After reassembly, I retested the drags in the same manner as the stock ones and once again stopped at 45lbs, but forgot to find out how much there was left to turn and there was more pressure available.

On a purely "by feel" basis, the Carbontexs felt smoother to me and they are a LOT sturdier than the pure carbon ones. I guess the real proof of the pudding will be a good fish. I will be presetting the drags for 20-25lbs.

Anyway, another thing worth noting is that the metal drag washers in the Saltiga did not seem to be made of stainless steel.... can anyone confirm what they are made of?. They looked and felt like anodised aluminium but could have been titanium. Also the stock drags had a generous coating of Daiwa grease on them too.

Well there you are, anyone else tried this?..... Jason, how has your experience been with the 4500?.

Regards,

Saimee

[hon-su]

YOu gonna love the Carbontex washers as they give you way smoother high end drag pressure than the stock ones but thats not to say the stock washers are bad, just not so smooth and long lasting. The metal washers are Titanium with Ti-Nitride coating on both sides of the washer. Do not damage those washers are they are BLOODY expensive!!

[DaFrogman]

WOOOOOOOHOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks Hon-su dude....my faith is restored in Daiwa.... was getting a touch edgy there.....hehehehehehe...

So how expensive is expensive for those washers...

Regards,

Saimee

[Sportfisherman]

Saimee ,

Jack ( Erko ) Erskine sent me a set of carbontex drag washers for my Stella 16000F in early 2004 , FOC , to test the performance in Komodo which it passed with flying color so I have no doubt you will find it suit the Saltiga 6500 better than the original Daiwa carbon drag washers which tend to
" spike " and cause all the failures of Saltigas .

Compared to Shimano Dartanium carbon drag washers , the Carbontex exhibit lower max. drag but by not much , 18 kg vs. 15 kg kg but the Carbontex is so much smoother and seems to be have longevity in their usefull life , I certainly haven't seen any decrease of performance after 2 years of regular use with GT and YellowFin Tuna .

Eventually when come to change the drag washers of my 16000F and 10000F spools ( 6 of tem total ) , I will use Carbontex . As for the SW10000 , that reel still have so much spare drags I don't think I will ever get to the stage where I have to change the drag washers until the new model comes out .

JonLi .

[DaFrogman]

Hey Jon,

Thanks for the heads up dude, good to hear from you....

Having taken apart a SW20K and doing a bunch of repairs on it, and then having a peep in the 6500, I may just stick with Daiwa for the big spinners.

I know you had a double bad experience with the 4500 and I reckon you are right about the principle weakness of the reel stem when fished with heavy drag settings. I'm very glad you did share your experiences with us. But the build in the 6500 is just plain solid dude.... and its soooooooo prreeeetttyyyy...

I will stick to using my Twinpower for the under 20kg fish, but I am hoping that we can get into some bigger fish here. Now all I need is that rod to go with the 6500.... it will be a Wrex....

I now have on standby, 1 set of spare EXP Ctex drags, 2 sets for the Trini 30 and 1 set for the Trini 50 too, they have all been spoken for within a day, so I guess quite a few reels here will soon be converting to Erko power. I just wish Smoothdrags would make proper sets for the OJ4000P since there are a lot of those reels out there...

Regards,

Saimee

[Sportfisherman]

Saimee ,

If you write an email to Jeck Erko , he may be able to tailor made Carbontex drag washers for OJ4000P , the drag washers for that 16000F of mine were tailor made by Jack .

I think what caused that Z4500s to break at the stem is due to the drag " spike " , I was only using only 6 kg drag set when they broke and the fish that caused them to break were sub 25 kg YellowFin Tunas .

My breaking Z4500s were not an isolated one , another Japanese fishing in my area broke one too and Nicola broke his Blast 4500 at around the same time as I did mine .

I am sure Z6500 is made more sturdy but drag " spike " still the bad part about all Saltigas or may be all Daiwas .

JonLi .

[jason]

Yo Saimee
I have juz recieved my drags this afternoon.....
Installed them liao but yet to tested them....


Cheers
Jason

[DaFrogman]

Jason,

Great news on your drags, did you grease them?.

Jon,

Yes, Jack has been kind enough to custom cut some washers for me before, 1 set for a Duel Speedy 20 and also a whole set of custom Kaikon base washers.

Problem is that I'm still waiting to measure the dimensions of the OJ4KP drag washers. Once I have those, I will pass them to Jack. I suspect that the difference between the OJ4KP washers and a Trini40 washer are very minimal.

I hear you on the drag spike issue which is one of the primary reasons I changed to the Carbontexs.

Regards,

Saimee

[MarkR]

Hi guys,

Stickbom! told me yesterday that Carbontex may damage Saltigas.
" the carbontex will wear out the outer coating on spool and drag stack cover...hence cause corrosion".......???!!!???

Cheers

[Sportfisherman]

How the corrosion set in on a sealed drag system , Mike must have use the wrong oil to lubricate those carbontex washers , an oxidizing type of oil ?

JonLi .

[Makaira]

When I got the C-tex from Jack Erskine, I specifically asked him if I should install them wet or dry. His advice was to use a little drag grease because the metal washers in the Saltiga are not stainless steel. Alas ... I have not used them yet .....nor can I find them. Dunno where the hell I kept them already!!!! I am also curious as to why they would cause corrosion?

[jason]

Yo Saimee
If u ever have the measurement for the OJ 4000P ,pls let me know as well ......
I think I will like this drag ....Feels very safe and secure using it....hahahahahaha....


Cheers
Jason

[DaFrogman]

MarkR dude,

Yes, Mikey and I discussed the possible corrosion issues which were first brought up by a mutual acquaintance of ours. At the time, I had not seen the spool and drag housing of the 6500EXP first hand, so I wasn't sure what to expect.

As I understood it, there was a concern that the use of carbon fibre cloth could cause wear to the end cap at the top of the drag housing and the bottom of the drag housing which is actually part of the spool and also where the spool bearing housing resides.

Now, after having taken apart the drag components, it appears to me that the observations on the areas of contact between the Ctex washers and the endcap and bottom of the housing are correct.

BUT, after hearing what Honsu told me about the titanium washers and the fact that it seems that the endcap too is made of the same material and coating (i.e. titanium and titanium nitride coating), I feel pretty confident that the endcap will be just fine.

The actual drag housing and the bottom of the housing are all part of the spool and the housing and spool look to have been machined out of a single solid block of aluminium (as I would expect). The inside of the housing and bottom part look like machined aluminium that is not anodised.

Since the sides of the housing would not come in pressured contact with the carbonfibre whilst the drag is screwed down, I am not concerned with the sides of the housing. The bottom of the housing would come into contact with the bottom carbonfibre washer, but I really don't feel that there would be additional wear issues compared to the standard pure carbon washers. The reason for that is from my experience with shimano dartanium pure carbon washers, where I have seen these pure carbon washers cause very little wear (but wear nonetheless) in stainless steel washers over a couple of years. I don't think that the Ctex will do any worse.

As I said in my first post, there were 2 different types of Ctex washers in the set, two made of a finer and smoother in texture Ctex and three made of a coarser and rougher. Ctex material I made sure that I used the two finer smoother ones in both areas of concern.

In any case, I am volunteering my reel as a Guinea Pig, if anything just out of my own personal curiosity, I can always get another spool if things go wrong. I will post what I find as I use the reel, but I sure hope that the fish cooperate with this experiment .

I am posting some pics of the two different Ctex textures in the set and the housing. The pics will also act as a baseline reference of what wear issues may develop.

Should be interesting.

Y'all hang tight.

Saimee

[stickbom!]

Originally Posted by MarkR

Hi guys,

Stickbom! told me yesterday that Carbontex may damage Saltigas.
" the carbontex will wear out the outer coating on spool and drag stack cover...hence cause corrosion".......???!!!???

Cheers

MarkR the claims did not originate from me

[MarkR]

Hi Saimee,

Pretty sound reasoning. I'm really wanting to try the Carbontex washers in my DF and Z4500 sometime soon. Never knew that the metal washers in the Saltiga had a Titanium Nitride coating as well. Thanks for taking the trouble to take pictures and provide a thorough explanation.

Cheers mate,

Mark

[DaFrogman]

Mark R,

No worries dudes, its all good.

Mak,

I just realised I never mentioned corrosion in my longwinded posts above.... Basically the thinking behind the argument was that the Ctex washers were "rougher" than the stock pure carbon ones and would wear away the coatings/anodisation in the spool and metal washers, exposing them to corrosion. Given what I posted above, I reckon things should work out ok.

All I need are a bunch of somethings that can hammer 20-25lbs of drag like a breeze and make some good runs, then I'll crack open the spool and look at the drag bits again...

Y'all try and get some fishin' done now...

Saimee

[hon-su]

alternatively U can make your own set of stainless steel washers.....

[Juan]

so Saimee,

any update so far? lol. has any biggies tested the drag?

just got my 6500 2 days ago...and intending to change the drag for fear of "drag spike" as mentioned by jon and your lovely comments about the smoothness hehe...

can you provide me the details from which i can get the drags + grease from?

Thanks alot! Really informative stuff!

[stickbom!]

I've already seen DFM's spiced up EXP in action. Solid I tell you... If carbontex was available last time, I would have kept all my 4 Saltiga reels I kid you not

[Juan]

Originally Posted by stickbom!

I've already seen DFM's spiced up EXP in action. Solid I tell you... If carbontex was available last time, I would have kept all my 4 Saltiga reels I kid you not

dammit u got me EXCITED! lol

[DaFrogman]

Juan,

My Carbontex Expedition accounted for ALL the biggest fish during Mikeys trip, including the 26kg Amberjack (and a bunch of other Amberjacks between 15-20kg), the 26Kg Grouper and the 18kg Grouper all caught on jig.

The drags performed as advertised, smooth, no suprises, no spiking and no bustoffs at the leader. Mind you, I preset the drags at 18lbs of drag only, but I noticed that Zul who was using the reel the most, upped the drags about one turn which would mean around 25lbs of drag.

I opened up the reel after the trip and the metal washers and the end cap were just fine, no signs of wear. I have pics that I was going to post in August but forgot about... I am posting them now.

I leave the conclusions to you...

If you want to get the Carbontex washers, go to www.smoothdrag.com and send an e-mail to Dawn. Look at the list of washers here http://www.smoothdrag.com/price.html and you will need to get the set of drags for "Saltiga Spinner Set of 5".

As for the grease to be used, I use Cals Star Drag Grease which you can get from Anglers Outfitters, they sell it in cutey little small tubs too. You only need a teensy weensy bit on each washer, or you can coat each side of the Carbontex washers with the grease then wipe off the washer with kitchen towel until it looks dry (but will have grease impregnated in its matrix). I used the latter method for the Saltiga b'cos the washers are small so you don't waste much grease.

I reckon you could also use Shimano Drag Grease, but I have never tried that although others say that it works just fine. Make sure you get the right Shimano grease though.

Saimee

[Juan]

Lovely!!

thank you so much.

when i get them, i will pm u on how to stack them cos i understood that it come in 2 different textures right? btw how many pieces are coarse how many are fine?

thank you so much!

[DaFrogman]

Juan,

No worries dude, its all good.

There are 2 finer texture washers which I used at the bottom and top of the stack. Its a very simple procedure to do, at the most I reckon that a pair of needle nose pliers and a small flat screwdriver would do the job just fine. If you have any problems just PM.

Good luck.

Saimee