Tip ups and cold

I have a few ht tip ups and a couple beaver dams that didn’t perform too well in the brutal cold. Very gummed up. Should I use the hot sauce oil or hot sauce grease to try and fix the problem?

Take apart those beavers and repack with a good lithium grease. Water / lack of grease in the shaft is your problem.

Carefully heat up the bottom of the spool until solder is soft enough to remove the pin. Then clean pin and shaft, grease, heat spool until pin goes back in. Might need fresh solder.

Personally, I believe that those type of tip ups serve a purpose but are over taken by the covered hole style tip ups when it’s truly fridged out.

My 2 cents. Get a couple thermal tip ups for ultra cold temps and lube all of your tip ups up with a Cold appropriate lubricant (grease) like bigpike said.

I wouldn’t recommend Lucas oil white lithium grease for cold weather applications though. Maybe some other brands of lithium grease are better for the cold. I have a tube of that stuff in my insulated, non heated (but attached)garage and that stuff separated out when the temp hits 25 degrees.

Anyways, good on ya for running tip ups when it’s cold enough to cause Lube problems!

I used my 25 year old beavers today in -15. The were flawless. Rebuilt a couple years ago as stated above….

X2 for Beaver Dams. I’m rocking hand me downs too. New springs/flags, relubed, new musky master braid, and good to go. Well maintained and with foam hole covers packed with snow around them they perform flawlessly and ice free in deep subzero.

I use the frabil tip up grease (I’ve tried the hot sauce…too thin. Do not use) I can get smooth running tip ups in -28 (thats as cold as I’ve tried.) Take your tip up apart and remove the old grease and water. I use pipe cleaners to get the tip up tubes clean. Install new grease on both the tip up tube and shaft. Reassemble and you should be set.

It’s also important to use an insulated hole cover to prevent hole icing. I just use the cheap foam disks with a slit in them. Keep them sealed and tight to the ice for the best performance.

ontario2016 wrote:

My 2 cents. Get a couple thermal tip ups for ultra cold temps

Ontario, I’m not saying this is what you were refering to but IMO the worst tip ups made are the orange insulated ones. The trigger is too heavy for light bitting fish around here. I’d say take nearly any other tip up and you will be better off.

Re packing a beaver dam tip up, one rap of line around shaft bearing, before you put spool back on shaft to re solder .Gives bearing just enough space to run smooth.

Thanks guys. I’ll give the frabil grease a shot

ozzyky wrote:

Thanks guys. I’ll give the frabil grease a shot

That’s the stuff!

I store mine in basement in summer months as the extreme heat heats shafts and lube can leak out! I have some tip ups over 32 years old use the frabil lube every couple years and store in cool place not in garage attic.

I was under the understanding that Beaver Dams have lifetime service agreement you can take to factory and they will handle? Is that too good to be true?

I’ve had the same experience with underwater tip-ups gumming up. Never liked doing the maintenance. I’ve been using my rod and reels on Finicky Fooler tip-ups with the new hole covers they came out with this season. Put them to the test this weekend. Temps. struggled to make it above 0 and the holes only skimmed slightly after 5 hours. I’m sure the sun being out helped, but still impressive considering my holes in my heated portable were freezing over.