I notice that some of those reel seats listed as Amtak in the new Mudhole catalogue seem awfully identical to what used to be Pac Bay.

A lot of that stuff comes out of the same factories in the orient. Pac Bay, Batson and Amtak have a lot of identical or very similar stuff.

Hello Marty,

I Heard about this question and I thought I would respond. The answer is no, American Tackle did not buy Pac Bay.

While it is true that some of the seats you see are very similar they are indeed from American tackle. The difference to note is the exotic stabilized hardwoods. They are unlike anything currently available from any other component company. We recently supplied a couple of our customers with these inserts for their hardware and brought some in to display at the Denver Fly show. The response was outstanding so we decided to offer the entire range of woods and while doing this we had to offer the hardware to those customers that don't purchase it from other component companies in order to complete the package.

As for the similar items from the same factories, it is true that much of it comes from the orient, however there are many factories with varying quality. While other component companies have their favored vendors, American Tackle will utilize several factories by using their strengths and abilities to supply us with premium quality products using proprietary designs and materials. One example is our "Atlas" frame guides with the strongest, most corrosion resistant stainless frames in the industry. Other examples include our new "Titan" guides with proprietary solid titanium frames, our new "Nanolite" ceramic inserts, and our new "Matrix" series. Our competitors cannot obtain these products even if they bought from the same factory. We engineer the designs to our specifications, buy tooling, and often purchase raw materials for production while other companies are content to buy off-the-shelf items. I realize rodbuilders have a lot of choices these days and even though there appears to be similarities its really the many differences that should be considered.

Please feel free to contact me if you any questions or require further information. (866) 516-1750

Darrin Heim
American Tackle Company

Why is it that none of the manufacturers will offer the same reel seat inserts for spinning seats that they do for fly!!!??? We must use our own ingenuity and purchase lathes to duplicate what is offered to the fly guys. I don't build fly rods but I do have customers that would like to have some of the exotic materials offered on the fly reel seets!!!

Darrin,
Can you tell us what Nanolite is and how it compares to other guide materials in terms of hardness, coefficient of friction, thermal conductivity etc. I do not know how others feel but there are so many good alternatives I am not very inclined to purchase guides when I do not know what the material actually is so that I can make comparisons and judge how well they are suited to different applications.

Waltyer -
I think you'll find that PacBay offers size 16 spinning seats. And Mudhole has their own line of wood laminate spinning reel seats in 17 and (I seem to recall 18mm) as well.

Hello Emory,

I cannot say exactly what it is for proprietary reasons. There are several different mixtures of materials used to make inserts and to describe what it is may allow our competition to capitalize on our research and development. Sorry to be so cagey about it but I can tell you that we met with a couple of ceramic ring manufacturers last year and looked at absolutely all of our options. The "Nanolite" insert is a ring that has all the desired qualities that will make our "Titan" and "Atlas" frame guides superior to anything on the market. The "Nanolite" inserts have a reduced material content making them physically lighter in weight without compromising durability. Their very high vickers hardness and smooth polished surface will allow minimum friction and heat while quickly disapating what does build up through the surface area of the ring.

As for how they compare to the other rings available, obviously I am biased. They take the best qualities of everything else that is available and combine them into the ideal package. They would be considered higher in quality then all the Aluminum Oxides and Titanium Oxides, (including the "A" ring from a well known manufacturer) and must be considered as well as surpass SiC and Zirconia rings with regards, to hardness, smoothness and above all affordability.

For now I would urge you to try them and judge for yourself, in fact try a lot of them, the more the better. Look for more to come from American Tackle as we are working on some really big things for the future.

If you have any more questions or want more information I can be reached at (866) 516-1750.

Darrin Heim
American Tackle Company

Ken, I did get some of the ones from Mudhole, theyre the same as PacBay. They are not even close to the exotics and quality offered for the fly reel seats. There are only 4 types of wood offered as compared to the numerous ones including the albacore ones from American. Batson, American and Pac Bay offer a large choice for the Fly Reel seat, it doesn't seem as if it would be that much trouble to offer them for the spinning and baitcasting builders. Combined I'm sure there are more spinning & baitcasting seats than fly. Just my .02 cents.

Hi guys,

I need to clarify something. It was pointed out to me that while I was trying to classify our Nanolite inserts into quality groupings I was unclear in my comments regarding SiC. Genuine SiC, still has the hardest vickers hardness rating among all ceramics. It is very hard indeed which can help make them suseptible to fracture at an expense that is also greater then other ceramics.

The Nanolite insert while not having the same vickers hardness as SiC certainly offers an extremely smooth surface with durablity at a reasonable price. Performance should never be sacrificed but it should be afforadable.

Thanks you for your time.

Darrin Heim
American Tackle Company

Walter -
Sorry I misunderstood. I thought you meant the SIZE / diameters. You are absolutely right spinning / bait casting choices are extremely limited in terms of variety of woods. \
Ken

Mr. Heim,

I appreciate the need to keep proprietary formulations and other IP confidenial, regarding the composition of "Nanolite". I also appreciate the efforts of an American company to advance a comprehensive line of rodbuilding hardware, even with (some) imported products.

I would expect that the relative technical sophistication of this board's membership would indictate an appropriate level of detailed information regarding products. While I can understand presenting the marketing posture on a company's product line, it is also important to present measured technical information. This might include Thermal, shock, finish and hardness information on ring composition, as well as metalugical properties of the frame.

I spend a lot of money on Fuji products. I sometimes gripe about the cost and other factors of this relationship. But the bottom line is that I buy (so far) exclusively Fuji product for guides becase they are the best, by quantifiable margins, in many properties.