by Matt Lynch
So everyone of us needs a hobby, right? Well if you are reading this you are probably already thinking fishing is my hobby. Truth be told fishing encompasses a much wider degree of micro-hobbies set within a primary category. If you catfish you know this better than most in freshwater. Before we can go fishing, we have to go fishing for bait. The art of procuring bait is in itself a small hobby within the envelope of fishing. If you are like me and so many others, fishing gear becomes a hobby all its own. Sometimes for simply its intended use, and sometimes it is for the sake of collection such as antique gear. Fishing equipment fascinates me both in terms of the mechanical complexities that allow it to work, and the employment of these items. For awhile Charles and I have discussed building a custom Penn Jigmaster. Anyone that knows me will attest I am a huge Penn fan and have been since purchasing my first one at age 13. a Lowly Penn 209M would become my first piece of serious catfish gear and its legacy would reinforce the idea of how great these reels truly are. Being blessed to be on a program with Pure Fishing, I elected to purchase a brand new production Jigmaster 500 rather than an older used one for my first build. The reel arrived and was just as smooth and solid as any other Penn I've handled. I was elated at the thought of the transformation about to take place on it. I cannot take any credit as my own for my knowledge of building the reel though as I first sought out advice from the masters of this craft. Andy Smith, of supertunereels.com, was a tremendous help and guide as I sourced parts I needed. His website has loads of awesome writeups and articles on custom built reels and he is just a great guy to talk to. He steered me to Alan Tani's website alantani.com. I can't describe the wealth of information to be found among the numerous members of his board along with links to most any parts you would ever desire. My parts list consisted of a Tiburon frame as my first part. Next at the advice of Andy and so many others I managed to acquire an excellent specimen of a Newell spool which has been out of production for some time from BerinsonTackle.com. The Newell allows for additional line capacity and enhanced casting ability. I visited ProChallenger where I sourced a 304 Stainless Steel bridge with double dogs and springs, 420 heat treated Stainless Steel eccentric and yoke, 416 graded Stainless Steel gear sleeve, and a 45mm EVA foam knob. I decided to hold off on SS gears for a little while as I cannot decide if I want to stick to my 4:1 ratio or upgrade to 5:1. At some point in the future I do plan to upgrade however. I was referred to Bryan Young who supplies a 5+1 drag kit for the 4:1 gear set. This drag set allows the limits of the Jigmaster to be pushed beyond what most would consider sane. With his kit, it can allow drags to exceed 20lbs with some people seeing 25lbs of drag. This alone puts the Jigmaster into a new class with its more modern counterparts. Be advised though that it is not recommended to do this unless you have upgraded additional parts such as I have. You can see Alan Tani's website for more information on Bryans drag kits and he is a great person to deal with and helped me in choosing the correct drag grease. I used Alan Tani's board again to locate a source for a replacement handle. Member "Three Se7ens" offers many different handle options including titanium, which I elected for my reel. I picked up an anodized drag star from eBay although several interesting and custom options are also available on Alan's board. We now we have a parts list and some guidance! I have serviced reels before but never done anything like this so I apologize in advance for any improper nomenclature and you will notice I had to improvise in some cases.
SO IT BEGINS: To begin disassembly of your Penn Jigmaster on the right sideplate is a thumb-screw. It is so idiot proof, it even instructs you on how to turn it.
After you have loosened the thumb-screw you will twist the sideplate releasing it leaving you with this assembly. This sideplate houses your bridge, ring/pinion gear, eccentric, yoke, handle, sleeve, etc. Gently place it to the side.
Next the spool will simply slide out of the frame. This feature also demonstrates how quick and easy spool changes can be made if you fish different lines on your Jigmaster.
Stand up the frame and look down at your left sideplate. Here is what contains the bait clicker assembly. You will notice there are 6 screws. I ended up mostly using a Brownells Magnatip screwdriver and a set of bits intended for a Marlin 1895 lever action rifle(remember I said improvised?)
Notice the two removed from the reel foot are shorter than the other four screws. It may not matter but I assumed this to be important-ish when storing them to the side. After removing them you have now removed the reel foot and its frame bars leaving you with the left sideplate. Next locate your Tiburon frame and remember where you placed the screws.
Line up your screw holes on the sideplate with the holes in the Tiburon frame and replace the screws you previously removed.
We now have this assembly completed and are back to 3 major parts. For this side, it is as simple as that, you are done!
Here I fit the Newell Spool into the frame and left sideplate. No clearance issues and a hand rotation told me the clicker worked fantastically. You can set this assembly to the side for now.
Now things will get abit more complicated. I placed the right sideplate down on plastic to keep from getting great everywhere. Using a small screwdriver, locate the small screw pictured. It locks the rotation of your handle's screw and will need to be removed. The supplied handle comes with a new one but be careful not to lose it for future use if needed.
Using the supplied Penn wrench, remove the screw that holds the handle in place.
Now remove the handle from the sleeve and then back off the drag star for removal. You will see the exposed brass sleeve which is a very failure prone part in heavy use. This is a priority part to replace with Stainless Steel on any build.
You will find 4 more screws located in the sideplate. These hold the bridge in place. When removing these screws you want to place your hand on the backside holding the bridge in place. After doing this place it down as you see pictured. After doing so, you can lift the sideplate up away from the bridge, exposing the remaining internal parts.
Once the bridge is out you can remove the pinion gear along with the ring gear and notice how the factory drag washers are laid out. You will notice the factory weaker bridge in comparison to the beastly Stainless Steel ProChallenger bridge. Also take notice of the double dogs on the SS bridge as opposed to the single weaker dog setup of the factory bridge to its left. My advice especially if you reuse the factory drag set is to place them out in the order removed as pictured. This factory drag can produce around 12lbs of drag.
Now the ProChallenger sleeve is supplied with a new pin, but just for demonstration purposes I will show you removal of the pin allowing the sleeve to be slide off the factory bridge's shaft. Note the state of the art holding fixture for this task.
The pin is quite small so I improvised with a Chad Shad musky lure hook to aid in removal. Gently tapping the bend in the treble moved the pin as you can see as it protrudes from the bottom of the sleeve now.
Here I have now slid the new SS sleeve onto the SS bridge and replaced the pin. You will notice once again the single dog versus the double dogs on the new bridge. You also now have an extra pin if you followed my above photo for future use. Ensure the new sleeve rotates freely and that the dogs catch the sleeve's teeth.
Remove your new drag kit from the bag. Bryan provides a sheet calling out how to set the stack up. First this small disc goes on before the ring gear.
Install the ring gear and follow the instructions to begin inserting the discs and washers. They will need a light coating of Cal's drag grease before assembly.
After greasing your stack will look like this setting inside of the ring gear.
Underneath the right sideplate with the bridge removed you will notice the factory Penn joke and eccentric. The yoke holds your pinion gear. Removing these I worked the lever back and forth until the eccentric key was in position to remove it.
Factory yoke and eccentric are removed
Next place the new SS yoke over the two screws ensuring it is correctly oriented to hold the pinion gear. Then work the new eccentric from the ProChallenger kit into place. You will again have to ensure alignment with two of the screws that we previously loosened on the exterior of the sideplate. I applied a light coating of Yamalube to the surfaces during this assembly.
You will reinsert your pinion gear after greasing it, and carefully slide the bridge back into place. Take your time while doing this and make sure they line up. After doing so you will need to tighten those four screws back up located on the exterior of the right hand sideplate.
We have now made it past the most complex portion of this build. Now we need to remove the ring pictures from the frame/foot pieces. This is the same process as removing them from the left sideplate. Be careful with the hardware and don't lose them.
Align it on your Tiburon frame and replace the screws securing it to the new frame.
I again applied a light coating of Yamalube around the spool shaft, and ring. You will also notice the notches that allow the right hand sideplate to twist and lock into position.
You can now place the sideplate back on by twisting it into place then tightening the thumb-screw back down. Beautiful right?
To install the shaft for the knob on the new Titanium handle I had to slightly open up the hole with a 3/16th drill bit. Do so carefully as to not remove too much material.
After opening the hole I used a small wrench and torx to tighten it securely into the new handle.
Notice I have already installed the new aluminum drag star on the sleeve and have the 45mm knob disassembled and ready to install on the shaft.
Slide the knob on and install the small phillips head screw snugging it up tight but ensuring it still spins freely.
Place the large washer on top of the knob assembly next then finally the large slotted cap.
With our handle assembled you will notice the tight fit of the new handle on the SS gear sleeve. Almost done.
Pretty straight-forward. Replace the handle screw using your Penn wrench. Then use a 3/32 allen wrench to tighten the new keeper screw. This is the final step and now we have a complete and functional reel ready to put the absolute smackdown on some cats.
So there we have it. A gorgeous custom Penn Jigmaster that will last indefinately. Easy to maintain, tough as nails, and can be handed down to my son some day. Once I decide on gear ratio, I will crack it open again to install the new SS gear set later. I warn you though, this will indeed become a hobby inside your already extensive fishing hobby. I've already secured a couple 501 Jigmaster Narrows since completing this first build and will be doing similar builds on them. I have invested around $270-300 in this Jigmaster which is alot for a catfish reel by many standards. However I have no question of whether it can fish alongside $500 reels and hold its on. It is a large investment but remember these reels usually have a service life longer than that of our own. If you have any questions feel free to reach me or any of the great guys I mentioned who guided me on this build.
www.alantani.com
www.supertunereels.com
www.prochallenger.com
www.berinsontackle.com
wwww.pennfishing.com
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