All About Free-Spool

I’m often asked why our spools spin so freely. The simplest answer is that our reels have a sleeve on each spools shaft. Decent bearings are important, but even the best bearings will not give good free spool if a proper sleeve is not used. Here’s how our Extreme Free Spool is engineered:

Ball bearings have an inner race and an outer race that hold the rolling balls in place. As long as the inner and outer races are aligned, the bearings turn freely, and the rotation of the spool is supported by these bearings on both sides of the spool.

In most lever-drag reels, a constant pressure is applied from one side of the reel to the other side over the main shaft. Many parts are held and squeezed together. This squeeze is applied along the same cylindrical “plane” as the inner race of the BBs.

At the same time, the spool is being held firmly in place with pressure along the cylindrical plane of the outer race of the BBs.

These two pressures (along the two, cylindrical planes) are not applied evenly or equally, and because of this unequal pressure on the bearings, they get torqued out of alignment and can’t turn freely. This is the cause of poor free-spool.

By adding a properly dimensioned sleeve between the two bearings, all of the parts along the inner cylindrical plane are held in alignment – no matter how much pressure is applied while aggressively cranking the reel. That way, the BBs don’t get torqued and are always able to turn freely.

Most other reel manufacturers know this system, and frankly, I don’t know why they fail to achieve our level of free spool. My guess is that we just pay more attention to the precision required for this kind of construction detail.

Jack

Free-Spool In Action

Richard Brock from Hooked on Adventure gave the spool a spin and shot this video. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing, but the spool didn’t stop until the cameraman reached out and grabbed it.