Had one die with very little use, they replaced it and 2nd unit has worked great but they wont be as nice the 2nd time, trying to get the goahead from the wife to sell it and upgrade to a LX9. If I knew it would live a long and happy life I’d keep it, nice lookin unit, but I always have this uneasy feeling that its going to die on me again.
So who wants to buy it!?!
Snosuit bibs all the way, nothing better, got the bibs and jacket for just over $300 from Red Rock Wilderness store in Ely, end of season
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Have owned and drilled a ton of holes with a Mora a Lazer and a NILS. IMO NILS is by far the best hand auger I’ve ever used.
I too have all three and agree, the Nils simply cuts faster with less effort. I do cringe thinking about my old Mora…. my Oh my have things changed, got my Mora at Fleet Farm in Hudson when I was 10 or 11, on sale, less then $20 at it served me well but both the Lazer and Nils are huge upgrades IMHO. I only have an 8” Nils now, use it with an 18volt Milwaukee LiON drill and a really nice adapter I made, works really really well, but I always bring the handle just in case.
The advantage of the Lazer is price and availability of blades, also might be easier to find someone that can correctly sharpen Lazer blades. The Nils is the Ferrari of hand augers, everything about it costs a bit more, but how many Ferrari owners would settle for a Corvette, even if the maintenance was cheaper, my guess is not many.
I love my Nils
Matt, thanks for the great reply, I assure you I’ll be in contact shortly, all these hiccups are totally understandable, I do this stuff (product development) for a living and its never easy bringing a completely new product to market. I hope you take my critique as a nod of confidence, I honestly wouldn’t even waste the time talking about it if I thought it was something completely flawed. I really hope you get all the kinks ironed out and turn this reel into a truly great product, I think its got just about everything going for it and I wish your team good luck. But I will go on record in saying I would be fine with a $5 price jump if it gets me a machined star drag adjustment, with all those steps involved I can’t believe its all the much cheaper and a solid one piece unit. Other than the loose bearing bores the machine work on the main body of the reel is REALLY nice, I dare say beautiful, it lives up to all the hype and hope I had for this product, bring that same level of perfection to all the components and you will really have a winner.
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Mine doesnt look anything like that,guessing when they ran them through the cnc they had a set amount of passes and just went with that, fault falls on the company doing the machining as I’m guessing this was contracted out by 13…
Clearly the contract manufacturer is responsible for actually doing this, but ultimately it still has someone’s brand on it and they are the ones that chose that partner. Vetting potential manufacturing partners is also a tricky process, especially when they are outside this country.
I’m glad to know there are some nicer ones out there, did you by chance take the handle off and check for 1 or 2 washers, part number 13-Elastiity Spring, drawing appears to show 2, I have 1.
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Peter,
I don’t believe that there has been any bashing going on. Giving an honest review on an individual reel is fair and I want to hear of any questionable quality issues. Even if the manufacturer takes care of or replaces the reel, that doesn’t change the fact that the issue was there in the first place.I have not met Ragged in person, but I am familiar with his workmanship. I see his comments as a unbiased review with an eye expecting top quality. If quality comes first in a product, everything else with it will fall in line.
Hey Dave nice to see you over here, small world!
So I ran into the shop today to fiddle with this thing this morning, pretty happy with what I came up with, Anyone with a reel in their hand knows if you back the drag off too far it will get VERY loose on the shaft and feel all wobbly and cheap, with no stop it will back out all the way until it runs up against the handle giving a great metal on metal feeling (not). I ended up putting in a Smalley wave spring and a .010” thick acetal washer, .3125 ID, .625” OD, this combo has absolutely done away with all those issues, never gets wobbly, you only back it out so far before it compresses the wave spring and locks up, I have this lock up set to happen right when the drag is at the loosest point I ever care to have it, basically nothing, any further and it would not change, drag essentially ceases to exist past this point.
But all this tinkering may be for nothing, I was noticing a “click” feeling in the drag when tightening it down, almost a pop, so I pulled out the assembly diagram to see if maybe I was missing a part, the diagram I have looks to be showing two of the keyed wave washers between the drag knob and outer bearing, mine has one. That may explain why mine doesn’t feel right and it may be why there is so much excessive shaft length on mine, another one of those washers would do exactly what I did above, take up length on the handle shaft and put some constant pressure on the drag knob to keep it from wobbling. If you happen to be holding one and want to take off the handle and let me know please do, otherwise I’ll just have to wait till tomorrow. (I’ll reference part numbers and name from the diagram when I get home)
My shim on the handle bearings is feeling ok, I’m not going to bother spending time on the right now, once I shim the inner bearing it should be acceptable.
Removed the broken clicker spring, if you look at the pic you can see the tip just broke off, found it munched up in the gears, the material is .005” thick and seems VERY brittle, not like the normal .005” spring steel I’m used to, might be a stainless or something (would make sense considering the wet environment its intended for), but if they are all like this they will not hold up, hopefully this was an isolated bad one. The pic was taken ontop of some nice Lyon .005″ spring steel stock, that stuff is the real deal.
I’m also posting a few pics on the cosmetic blemishes I mentioned above, it’s clear to me this was done with a dull cutter, brings me back to the first day I ever machined something, looks just like the first pass I ever made with a dull high speed steel ball end mill, fresh carbide is on the menu these days and I haven’t seen anything like that in a while. If you are going to go through the trouble of making some cosmetic machine marks at least make them look good, one carbine cutter would have been able to do every one of the cuts on all 500 reels and never look like that.
The drag knob itself is a rather ugly part on this otherwise beautiful reel, clearly they cut corners here. The knob is actually two pieces, the inner threaded hub is a nicely machined part, but the star part is rather crude (look at the edges) stamped out of sheet stock, the orange areas are then machined and then its formed/bent into shape and pressed onto the machined hub. Why they cut this corner is clear, cost, but I for one would have gladly paid $5 more to have that be a nicer part, really ruins the feel of this otherwise high end looking ice reel. To contrast the poor looking machining on the drag knob I have attached a pic of my handle, similar operation, stamped and formed part again, but as you can see the orange anodized area is very bright and perfect, the line where it meets the black finish is crisp and smooth, well the upper line is, the lower line one looks a little shotty because the iner hole was stamped not machined, but for the most part the cut itself was clean and smooth, nothing like the drag knob.
Also I took a side shot of the free wheel knob, you can see how poorly this part is machined, the one side is almost twice as thick. Does this function any different, no it works just fine, but you lose out on a perceived sense of quality when you see things like this. This is very typical of stuff I see coming out of China and other foreign shops, I have no idea where this reel is made but between the details missed and the price I’d guess not here or europe, my guess would be Asia.
I couldn’t get a pic of the machine marks on the spool, they are very minor and you have to catch them at just the right angle to see them, but they are there. I know I must seem like an impossible to please A-hole but I’m not, and that’s not what bugs me about these things. What bugs me is it would have taken about 5 seconds for the CNC to do a final finish pass on this area, an operation that would add almost nothing to the cost and result in a flawless part, if you are going to go 99% of the way just go 100% and produce and incredible product.
Wasn’t trying to “bash” it, just giving a honest read of the product, for months people have been talking about getting one, well I have one and its really nice, I’m going to use the hell out of it this winter, a major step in the right direction, but not as nice as it could have been (maybe they should hire me). I figured people would want a somewhat qualified honest read instead of a white washed glowing review. .
As far as talking to the maker, I will, but its Saturday and I just picked this thing up last night, but that shouldn’t change anything. If there are issues people need to know what to look for, never been a fan of keeping stuff on the down low to protect the image of a company. I run into people constantly that didn’t even know they have crap until I point it out, then they go and get it resolved and can’t thank me enough for pointing it out, some people are less discriminating than others.
I’m also not one of those guys that go and cry to a mfg about every little thing, its more effort to waste their time and mine by shipping product all around the country when I can just fix it right myself and be done with it. I just think $100 is enough that we should expect something really special. I buy most of my rigs as combos late in the season when they are half off, so I can safely say this reel is about 3X the price of my most expensive ice combo, so yeah I expect it to whisper sweet nothings in my ear and rub my feet.
Again, not meaning to bash, this thing is really really slick and the concept has tons of potential, huge step in the right direction and I have to applaud them for taking the task on when the monsters of the industry wouldn’t.
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Sitting here playing with mine and dont notice any play in mine….
I guess you got a good one, considering it took a .002″ shim with ease I’d say there is at least .005″ total play in my outer bearing, that’s allot. I’d say most reels, even the cheapie $10-20 spinning ones have next to zero play. Most are a press fit, but to be fair that is allot easier to do with a plastic body, can run more tolerance and the plastic will give without deforming the bearing, not the case with a metal bearing seat. Considering its machined that should be an easy tolerance to hold, but they finished the entire reel post machining, you have to have allot of faith in the finish thickness to machine critical bores before finishing, not sure if that’s there the slop came from but it very well could be.
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we also have delrin here, and i used them as specers in my marcum arms to stop any aluminum on aluminum galling that would happen at the joint. I made them .015 thick and .03 thick, and the .03 adds more of a comfort zone and looks more natural in the gap on my application. I can dig thru my pile of stuff at work and see if i have any oil filled stuff and hold onto it, just in case you notice any wear on the delrin. if you do, i might be able to ship you out a small chunk to do more testing.
Thanks for the offer, I really appreciate it. I have just about everything one could want on hand, but most of the oil impregnated nylon I have is greenish, not black,(do you have black OIN? if so where did you get it) Also nylon absorbs a bit more moisture. I do prototype engineering and building, so we are always using different things.
Was playing around with the reel today, got a .002” brass shim on the outer bearing, that took up a bunch of the slop, still the little bit left between the shaft and the bearing but its better.
While playing with it my clicker stopped working, the thin metal tab broke off, snapped clean. Generally these are made of spring steel and generally you can tell its spring steel as its still blue/black from the hardening process, unless its been polished. This clicker tab/spring looked like untreated steel, not sure what it is. Next time I’m in the shop I’ll replace it with some spring steel of the same thickness.
Also noticed the push bottom for the freewheel is poorly machined, the knurling is almost twice as thick on one side, no functional issues here but again, if you are going to tout this as a machined reel and charge $100 don’t expect to get a pass on shotty work. My guess is this reel is made in China, no attention to details like this is common place, normally I say you get what you pay for, don’t compare a Snap On to a Harbor Freight, but in this case when paying Snap On Prices one would expect the details to be addressed. Also noticed poor machining on the spool face, hard to see with the thick finish on there but its there, catch it in the right light and its easy to see.
Its still a nice reel, but they are only 90% there, close but no cigar, a couple of engineering changes, some better control over the contract manufacturer and they will be there.
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Thanks, let me know what you end up doing to remedy this issue. Also, if you decide to hone anything out and make a sleeve to take up the few thou gap, let me know. any reason why acetol instead of nylon or other plastics? oil filled uhmw or even oil filled nylon could work well I am thinking so the friction doesn’t affect it as much.
The truth is I have some black on hand so that’s why I’ll use it, can’t go putting a white washer on a Black Betty! But Acetal (Delrin) is great with friction, not that it will see much if any, I might make it on the thicker side to limit how far the drag can move out, there is no reason it needs to back out that far, after just a few turns from locked up it the pressure all but stops anyways, I might even try and slip in a wave spring between two washers, the pressure on the drag knob might help it from feeling so loose. Not the greatest drag set up out there, not even close.
Been lurking on here for years but just thought I’d share my input on this product. I was pretty excited to get my hands on one, I’m a sucker for high end precision stuff so this was right up my alley. I picked mine up and was pretty impressed, but after playing with it for a bit I’d have to say it’s a bit flawed and there are some issues with tolerances, not sure if this is due to poor machining or poor design, it is possible the reel needs this “slop” in order to function correctly. I will say my reel does seem to function 100%, drag works, clicker works, free spoil tensioner works, spools spins free and true.
My main gripes have to do with the excessive play in the handle shaft and also the configuration of the drag. I took the reel apart and found the inner bearing on the handle shaft is a nice tight fit, but the outer bearing has at least a couple thousandths of play between the reel body and the bearing, also there is another couple of thousandths play in the brass handle shaft and both inner and out handle shaft bearings. My concern is the play on the outer bearing and reel body is intentional. The drag is a series of discs found near the inner bearing, for the drag knob to inflict pressure it must compress all the components on the shaft that are found between the drag discs and the drag adjustment knob, one of these components is the outer bearing, it must be able to slide in and out on the shaft in order for the drag to function, this seems like a poor design, especially if the excessive slop is needed for it to function. In my opinion a $100 machined reel should not have an noticeable slop on the handle, my $10 plastic deals are tight as can be in the handle, they really missed the mark here.
My next concern is the drag adjustment knob itself, with such little threaded area its wobbles around all loosey goosey as well, really feels cheap when its backed out all the way, just wobbles like crazy. Also if you are not careful and back the knob out too far it will contact the handle, could mess up the finish and simply doesn’t feel good to have metal on metal rubbing, I’ll be tossing a .010” black acetal washer in there when I take it apart again.
The areas where it has been machined and anodized orange look pretty awful for a $100 reel, looks like they did a single pass with a dull cutter, a 2nd light finish pass or fresh cutter would have made all the difference, looks pretty shotty considering its price point.
That’s the bad stuff, the plus is the spool spins absolutely flawless, not a hint of wobble or friction, if only this precision had carried into the handle shaft. Other than the minor machining issues the reel looks killer, it is side heavy but when I put a glove on it didn’t feel too bad and I had no issues with the handle configuration, but that’s just me.
My guess is they will tweak the handle area, maybe try and bring some of it further inboard to reduce the offset weight. Overall a nice reel, even with its issues it’s the nicest one I own, hopefully the next version is better. Not sure if I’ll keep it and try and fix the issues, sell it, or just use it as is, hard to feel the wobble with a glove on but I know its there and it bugs me…..
