Hardy is making some phenomenal tackle at the moment, and my curiosity of the Fortuna drag soon lead me down the dreaded sealed drag teardown after I managed to misalign the drag plates.  Under the drag knob I found something very clever.  To ensure the drag is sealed correctly the good folks at Hardy use gasket maker under each screw.  Why didn’t I think of that!

The worst kind of corrosion on my reels that Ive built is always in the thread areas.  Once this thread is stripped from corrosion you can throw away that part of the reel.  The rust spreads badly under the anodising and its a cancer you won’t cure by tapping a new thread.  Even if you did that you won’t be able to spot anodise to stop further corrosion.

If you’ve ever dipped your reel in salt water, you’ve got some corrosion happening in these threads and in drag plate bearing (if its not a sealed reel).  If it is a sealed reel you might also have it.

On the Tibor I now replace my drag bearings with ceramic, but the reel stand is a big problem area on Tibors and even on my Fortuna.  Salt water runs down your reel seat and finds its way into these threads.

Gasket sealer is the perfect solution for here and other areas.  Now this is one less area that I have to do on my quick rebuilds and will extend the life of the reel.

Oh, and use thread locker when you reassemble.  It stops corrosion and salt water from getting in.  I may go a bit overboard on these things, but you can only be in denial about corrosion for so long.