I usually have more than one reel to clean when I’m coming back from a trip, and although the line winder can take two lots of backing, that’s usually not enough and I hate the dance of moving things on and off.  The perforations do make it great for cleaning fly reel backing.  In my experience, salt in fly reel backing is one of the main causes of messed up reels, and it’s critical you strip and soak your backing after the tropics.

During one trip down the pool aisle in builders warehouse I spotted these yellow leaf trap things that looked a lot like the line winder tool and figured I could make one into a line winder.  I did and they work beautifully.  Its a bit of work but makes cleaning lots of reels at once way easier.

Here is a simple step-by-step 

See line winder tool and recycler in user here:

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