The lowdown on the Avet 80W

Addicted2fishin · Apr-07-2008, 05:03 PM

Since acquiring it a few days ago, I did what any tinkerer does, take it apart.

Upon first observation of the reel... I like.. I like it a lot. Comparable weight to the Penn 80VSW but much better design. The inside of the frame is arched outwards like the 50 so bunched up line can clear just a little. On the Penn 80VSW there is no room for error... one mistake and you got yourself in a sticky situation. The finish is typical Avet... just a few blemishes but that definitely won't affect performance. The handle is a power stroker and the rubber grip is formed nicely for my hand... nice but not Shimano nice. This reel can crank in an Ahi sideways in High gear while keeping the boat going 5 to 6 knots forward. Its that powerful.

They fixed the problem with the increase in load on the handle when the drag is advanced. Dual bellvilles on the mainshaft between the right bearing and spool shaft decreases the effect and its not noticable with the smoothness of the reel. Its more pronounced on my 50's and my Lx.

Two problems did arise though which can be solved with minor work. One was the shift from low back to high.... the button does get stuck when load is applied to the spool... for example when on a fish. No back and forth movement allowed the button to pop back out. Grease it... and problem solved.

Two was the drag... it may be due to an error during the manufacturing of my reel and may be consolidated to mine or just a few reels. The drag was extremely... I mean extremely jerky. I encountered this many times and know automatically that its either a warped stainless washer or grease on the drag. Upon inspection... it looked like grease on the drag since there was a rainbow reflection and a slippery substance on the metal washer. Brake cleaner and it was gone but the fiber washers were still giving it the sticky feel. I then did what I do to all my other reels... the Alan Tani treatment. Grease them with Cal's drag grease or Shimano drag grease. It got smooth... but not smooth enough. The intense jerk was gone but it still stuck and then the rod tip would move up. I did the break in again of running off yards of line and it wouldn't go away. It is considered Penn smooth but definitely not Shimano smooth. I like when the rod tip stays at the exact same bend and line pays out smoothly.

All in all its a great reel at a great price. I definitely would suggest this reel before the Penn International in terms of fishability... but it does need to be a bit more refined. The issues will be gone shortly as mine was one off of the first batch. The Shimano 80 Tiagra you can fish it right out of the box. This reel needs to be tinkered with first or you might be a little frustrated with the small discrepancies between each reel.

Have fun!!!

**sdangler** · Apr-07-2008, 05:14 PM

Typically with the Avet's the drag needs to get warm a few times before it is 'broken in'. That's just my experience...

Thanks for the write up.

Mark

marlyn · Apr-07-2008, 05:31 PM

hook it up to a truck and peel off 100 yds a time or two,it works but dont ask me why......

Addicted2fishin · Apr-07-2008, 06:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by marlyn

hook it up to a truck and peel off 100 yds a time or two,it works but dont ask me why......

I did. No matter how much breaking in I tried, it wouldn't go back to smooth. I swear I spent 3 hours of yanking off line in low drag, medium drag, high drag, I couldn't get it to work like my 50's. I currently have Avet 50's in my arsenal and only encountered one bad problem that was exactly what is happening now. My LX fiber washer was replaced free of charge and reason was grease on washer from manufacturer assembley. I work on thousands of reels and this happens every so often so my reel may be one of them.

One word of caution with the truck thing. This reel puts so much drag, there is no way you could stand up straight without the risk of asphalt skiing. I put it in the boat's rod holder and at strike, could barely pull off some line. Very inpressive.

I'm now waiting for the Avet 130. A tackle ho is never satisfied.

Addicted2fishin · Apr-08-2008, 04:57 PM

Update again.

Talked with Harry and he is sending out the washers free of charge. Now this is service!!! From now on i'm a loyal Avet customer. Shimano never did this.... this quickly. Daiwa... you can wait 5 years and get no response. And Penn ... haha... the parts are available but if you need help in assembly you get the "foot up your ass" response.

Now this is what was said about the drag.....

Do not .... I repeat do not grease it. Harry is correct in the fact that the typical drag grease breaks down at high temperatures. After that it slips or drag becomes sticky. I did have this happen on a 12/0 senator with ht 100's. It was "Shimano" smooth for the time being. After some smoking runs and a few days out and about the drag did exhibit the jerkiness feature which I initially thought was water between the washers. Disassemble and redo. Same thing. Now I guess that is what Harry was pointing out. For small fish its fine. For big Marlin on heavy drag that can run off 800+ yards in 30 seconds... its a no no. For warranty reasons I'm sticking to his advice for the Avets.

**Jason** · Apr-09-2008, 09:01 PM

Must have been you Harry was talking about when I talked to him on monday. He explained to me about the grease burning up and welding after time. Also that greased drags push the grease to the outside edges in which salt water deposits then mix with the grease and weld together. It also makes dunking the reels to clean them near impossible as the drags can not be "washed" with water.
After seeing 20+ reels that came off a long range sportboat with absolutly no maintence other than washing them with fresh water and feeling their drags I am sold on no grease in Avet Drags.
Harry and Sarkis showed me some of the drags they had to replace that were greased. Welded is an understatement! Hopefully they will send me some pics soon so I can post them up.
Let us know how those new drags work for you.

frijolitos · Apr-09-2008, 10:14 PM

I spent almost 3hrs in the AVET plant and got the total tour from Harry and Sarkis. I'm glad we made the switch to avet on our boat am looking forward to our Big fish season coming up. I strapped in to Harrys harness with the 80 and just about got yanked off my feet with that much pressure. Gonna get that sucka killing cows this summer here in PV. I was very impressed with the time they took out of their day just to show me around. He explained to me the whole drag issues, and I can't really see why anybody would tweak these things or do anything not recommended by them, not alot of room for error in that business, they gotta make em good, and they do!

Addicted2fishin · Apr-19-2008, 11:22 PM

Tried the Avet out today in the friggin rough. I compared it only to the Penn 80 STW which was on my dad's side of the boat.

Unfortunately the fish were small and we couldn't stay out long enough and only caught some small 30 to 40lb Ono... err.. Wahoo. But comparing the two is like night and day. The Avet was smoother... Shimano smooth in fact. It's longer handle and slightly lower gearing along with an awesome drag allowed cranking in a 30lb Wahoo at 8 to 10 knots so easy. Sorry we couldn't slow down due to the fact that the bow would dip and submerge the boat.

... Yes we were the only idiots out that day in our 17' boat. Anyways in the short and lackluster testing we gave it, my dad (being a diehard Penn fan since the 70's) was overly impressed by the power of this reel. The drag impressed him even more. It clicked... when I slacked it to "bait" setting... and at slightly above that it put out so much drag that the fish thought it was a water skier. Not much of an adversary so i'll be marlin fishing it here in Kona soon. Ahi in the 100lb range would probably be able to only scream off 50 yards of line at the most so its no fun.

Just a first impression the reel. We haven't given it a work out yet but the avet 50's have been working just fine.

Hopefully more to come.

alantani · Apr-23-2008, 10:47 PM

ok, i'm going to weigh in on this one after all ................................

first, cal's grease melts at 500 degrees farenheit.

second, every major reel manufacturer now uses a greased carbon fiber drag washer in all of their flag ship two speed reels EXCEPT for avet.

and three, this post is all about a dry drag that was sticky, not a greased drag.

so rj, you seem like a straight up guy and i am assuming that you have no industry affilliations. for the record, i do not either. also for the record, i always buy the first round of drinks when i am in the company of guys like you. for the rest of you, a disclaimer would be appreciated. oh, and harry never did send me that drag washer to look at. you remember, right? it was the one that someone said was so badly fouled because of the teflon grease that was added. where is cal sheets when you really need him?

marlyn · Apr-24-2008, 08:47 AM

alan,i spoke with cal at length about this subject at fred hall and he greases them too and to top it off he works on the reels of the guys on avets pro staff(greased of course).i also got a chance to spend some time with harry,what a great guy, but he definetly doesnt beleive in greased drags.while harry is an expert at building reels and machining i think cal is an expert on making drags work properly so ive chosen to go the greased route,if its good enough for avets pro staff its good enough for me!

alantani · Apr-24-2008, 08:56 AM

also, i should acknowledge that a dry drag DOES work fine, um, until it gets wet or oily. at that point, it grabs unevenly and you feel the jerkiness. now, your reel was brand new. that means there had to be a high spot in the drag washer somewhere. that's the only way that a brand new, perfectly dry, drag washer can fail like this. um, unless it got oil on it or something ...........

benjaminfrazier · Apr-24-2008, 09:53 AM

As one of Avet's Pro Staff, I would like to emphasize that we do NOT grease our drag washers.

Addicted2fishin · Apr-24-2008, 05:29 PM

Alan, when I disassembled the reel after trying hours to break it in I did post above that it did seem to have some oil on the drag. The stainless washer was shiny with a rainbow effect and it did feel slick. Which is why I posted above which may have been an assembly problem consilidated to my reel. No high spots upon looking at wear after burning off hundreds and hundreds of yards of line. Even wear on complete fiber washer. Hence the only know associated problem was grease or oil on it which I did find out later.

You probably know me since I bought a handle for my tld30 and want one more for my dad's 50SW. I also do hundreds of maintenance of friend's and families' reels. I am not associated with Avet but will stick to what Harry said on his reel. I have 2 EXW 50's.. one greased and one dry. I have been trying them side by side throughout our Ono season. Greased is Shimano smooth. Dry sticks at beginning and releases smoothly after overcoming the initial break. Not bad in any way and both have their goods and bads. I like Shimano smooth but Avet dry does catch fish too so I have no gripes about it other than the fact that if i'm one of those lazy fisherman who won't take apart a reel for 2 years (like my dad) then grease it for less maintenance. I love to take things apart therefore I might not need the greasing for my line of fishing. But like said above, I like shimano smooth.

When ever you are in Hawaii Alan give me and my friend a call. We might be able to take a booze cruise and maybe end up with some small Ono and Ahi as bonuses. Oh and you might have to put up more tutorials over at the new uluafishing forum I sent ya.

alantani · Apr-24-2008, 10:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by benjaminfrazier

As one of Avet's Pro Staff, I would like to emphasize that we do NOT grease our drag washers.

yeah, well, ben, apparently someone on your prostaff has joined the dark side. for those of us in the business, there is one true master. his name is cal sheets......

as for you, rj, the first round is on me. hell, maybe the first several rounds. and if you ever come over to the mainland, let me know. fishing here really sucks, but i can at least get you out on the water. alan

seriola · Apr-28-2008, 03:42 AM

Hi guys,
hi Alan,
interesting comments. I own since a few week a nearly brand new Ex 50. With that sticky and jerky brake and a lot of other problems. In the moment the reel is open to locate the problem, why the brake is so sticky that i have lost 3 Blufintunas with here.

One problem i have found out is that the resin which is used to fix the CF washer on the aluminium discs was coming out and touched the surface of the steel disc.
Second problem, the backside of the steel disc is extremely scratched between the wholes, still bad work in the fabric. Parts like this never would pass through a good working Quality control.
Third problem, the spool had corrosion after one use a year before, but this is an optical problem. It was rinsed very well and stored dry.

I take some fotos and will send them to AVET. It is worse, that a reel which is sold in Europe for nearly 900 US Dollars isn't perfect handcrafted.

So in the moment, the performance of my 4 Tiagras 50 WLRSA is otb light years better. Sorry, i hope AVET will help me to solve the problems, in the fact the design is very nice, but with the design only i couldn't catch the fish.

What do you think, would they help me?

Juergen