The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

Whilst being tutored by piscatorial professor Bob Brookes on the gentle art of barbel fishing, I was fortunate enough to use his DAM 280 reel. I was immediately smitten! So my search began for a good 280 but they do seem difficult to source here in the UK.
A post on the forum resulted in a response from Duebel (Martin) who suggested that it was more likely that a decent reel could be found in Germany. Martin very kindly offered to search for one locally and in a day or so had come up with some prospects. There were two contenders and he suggested it would be a good idea to have both in case there was a problem with either one of them. I agreed that this was a good strategy so Martin Duly started negotiations and presently two reels arrived at my doorstep.
The reels turned out to be 285's, essentially a 280 with a push button spool release and a precursor to the 330. In generally good condition there were issues with both however but having stripped them down to their component parts I managed to re assemble the best components of each and ended up with one very decent reel, an additional spool and lots of spare parts all for a very reasonable sum!
So, huge thanks to Martin for putting in so much time and effort to find the reels, purchase them on my behalf and arrange shipping to the UK, what an absolute gentleman and a real asset to this fine forum. Here's a pic or two:


The reels are superbly engineered, very smooth in operation and clearly built with hard work and durability in mind. The issues with the reels were largely due to poor maintenance and for some reason an incorrect replacement component.
I christened the reel today with four fine rudd from a friends Lake!

What a joy to see, that you managed to make one well working reel out of the two!

It was a pleasure to help you finding the reels.

Four rudd are a good start. May there be some nice barbel soon ...

The body of a 280 and the quick release spool of the 330 seems like a reel made in heaven to me. I have never seen one and I look forward to having a wind of yours. Well done to Martin and the camaradarie of TFF.

I notice that I had re-assembled the handle in the wrong position, the anti reverse lever should be behind the handle stem not ahead of it as shown in my pics.
I have also discovered that there are two versions of the link arm which connects the crank to the spindle. It seems that there is one version for winding left handed and another for right handed winding. I believe that the problem I had with one of my reels binding up was because some one had attempted to swap the handle over without changing the link arm to the appropriate version. Just thought I'd mention this in case someone has a similar problem with their reel binding up whilst winding.

Puts me right in the mood for one

NiceRoach wrote: ↑Tue Oct 23, 2018 11:59 pm Puts me right in the mood for one

There are always some on offer in Germany ...

Jeremy Croxall wrote: ↑Tue Oct 23, 2018 7:55 pm I notice that I had re-assembled the handle in the wrong position, the anti reverse lever should be behind the handle stem not ahead of it as shown in my pics.
I have also discovered that there are two versions of the link arm which connects the crank to the spindle. It seems that there is one version for winding left handed and another for right handed winding. I believe that the problem I had with one of my reels binding up was because some one had attempted to swap the handle over without changing the link arm to the appropriate version. Just thought I'd mention this in case someone has a similar problem with their reel binding up whilst winding.

Very interesting!