Lot of people not paying much attention for having the correct equipment. Having one or two screwdriver is not sufficient. I’ve seen lot of damaged reels due to use of improper tools. The good old example is the use of a wrong screwdriver size. This will definitely damage the screw, if not the fishing reels. For new fishing reels, probably we can still find the replacement parts. But for the old reels, spare part is hard to come by, if still available that is. So before we make any non-reverseable mistake, let equipped ourselves with the proper tools and equipment.

Here is what I have in my tool box. Pretty simple.

Screw driver
Screw driver is one of the most important tool. The most important issue is to use the correct crew driver for the work. Having said that, it will be very difficult to maintain a whole range of sizes. What I did is to buy screwdriver set with interchangeable bit. Meaning I can change the sizes and type as I wish. I’ve bit sizes for both philip (star) as well as the flat screwdriver.

In addition I also keep small size screwdriver the one that people used for repairing the watches. Small size screwdrivers are very important for those small crews. For easy access I just put them in a small bottle. I don’t need to dig through my tool box for the small screwdrivers.

Pliers
Another important tools is the long nose plier. Very handy when we want to hold or handle small parts. Try to find plier with the wire cutter type. At least you don’t have to buy a cutter.

Tray
I like tray very much. You can keep all the part inside the tray without messing your table. Try to find the one that is bright in color. So you don’t have the hard time find the small parts. In addition it is a good idea to buy the small ice-cube tray. Keep all the small parts in the ice-tray in the orderly manner. It will be more easier assembling back the reels.

Wrench

Wrench become handly when you need to take off the spool housing. A set of interchangeable wrench is more than sufficient.

Cleaning tray
Having small cleaning plastic tray will be good idea. This is where we do the cleaning of part using the solvent. I’m using the ice cream plastic contrainer. The good thing about the icecream container, you have to finish-off the icecream.

Plastic container
Sometime we need to postpone the servicing work to some other time. It is not a good idea to leave all the part lying in the work tray. Believe me you will have a great difficulty finding some of the part the next time want to continue the work. What I normally do, I'll pack the small part in a small plastic. write some marking and store all the part in a plastic container with a secure lid. Zip lock also can be used.

Others

C-Clip plier is good to have. Most of the reels that have bearing will have a c-clip holding the bearing in place.

If you don’t have work bench, find brightly lighted area. Your dinner table is sufficient enough, but make sure you obtained the work permit from the “home minister”.