Ultralight Fly Fishing Reel

cults3d

This is another Fly Reel I designed a few years ago, which features an Ultralight Design and was paired with a cheap Eagle Claw Featherlight 3/4 Line Weight Fly Rod that I found on Amazon. Let me start by saying I know very little about fly fishing and not a thing about fly reel design. Similar to my other printed fly reel, this one was made just to see if I could do it. This is a simple Click and Pawl design reel - it uses a spring, ball, and dents designed into the spool to control the very "limited" drag. It was designed to use your hand against the outer spools rim if you need more drag. Notice: If you're looking at this thinking it would be a cheap way to get into fly fishing, I highly recommend going another route. Shorter/lighter fly rods are harder to cast... get something better/larger or you will just get frustrated and quit. Ok.... with all that out of the way, let's move on to the nuts and bolts. Hardware Required (1) 10-32 x 1" Socket Head Screw and Nut (See Notes Below) (1) 4-40 x 1/2" Flat Head Screw (1) Thrust Bearing (or washers See Notes Below) (1) Spring & Ball Notes Nut: The nut for the spool is embedded into the actual thumb knob during printing and requires a thin nut. (I used an 18-8 Stainless Steel Thin Nylon-Insert Locknut from McMaster-Carr, Item# 90101A225.) You could probably just use a nut and washer but seeing it's used to set the drag of the reel (so to speak) it might be hard to adjust in the field without a tool if you went that route. If you can't find a thin nut, I have included two different thumb nut files to choose from.... Ultralight_Fly_Reel_Thumb_Nut.STL uses a Thin Nylon-Insert Locknut with these specs: Ultralight Fly Reel Thumb Nut STL uses a 1/4" x 0.1875" x 0.0625" thin nylon-insert locknut. Ultralight_Fly_Reel_Thumb_Nut_Full.STL uses a full-sized Nylon-Insert Locknut with these specs. Thrust Bearing: Unfortunately, I made this so long ago that I don't remember where I bought the thrust bearing from. (Probably eBay) The thrust bearing setup measures 0.472" x 0.176" (12mm x 4.5mm) width and height. (You could probably substitute a few plain washers in place of the thrust bearing.) Spring and Ball: The spring and ball for the clicker/drag can be a Pen Spring and a BB but they will rust over time. I used a 0.186" chrome ball (Honda Motorcycle Part# 96211-06000) and I also used a cut-down stainless steel spring that I found locally. Use a small hex wrench to press the spring and ball into the hole while pressing the spool down, then just remove the hex wrench and the spool should fit into place holding the ball. It's a little tricky but not impossible. Hold the spool in place until you tighten the thumb knob. Miscellaneous: The hole for the spool bolt was left small and tapped with a 10-32 tap. (You can probably just force the screw in, but it might crack.) The Handle pin was also tapped for the 4-40 screw.