Arx is a reel built with purpose; Spey or switch casting a variety of lines with maximum line control and reliability. The continuing evolution of Spey and Scandi lines, shooting heads, flat mono, etc. demand a reel that can help prevent line snags while retaining the high performance you’ve come to expect from Waterworks Lamson.

Arx has a full cage frame that encapsulates the spool to prevent line from escaping or snagging in critical areas. Normally a configuration like this would do a good job at preventing line fouling, but would preclude palming the reel. Arx is carefully milled on the bottom third of the reel to expose a functional palming section. Even the drag knob has been designed to provide optimal grip without exposing a portion of the reel to line fouling.

Format: Large Arbor
Materials: Machined Aluminum Stainless Steel
Finish: Hard Alox
Drag: Sealed Conical Drag System
US Made, Idaho Built

Model	Dia	Width	Weight	Capacity	Line
3+	3.75"	1.20"	7.00 oz	125 yd 20#	+100' 0.024" running line +500 grain Skagit head +10' T-9 sink tip
3.5+	4.00"	1.50"	8.80 oz	150 yd 30#	+100' 0.030" running line +640 grain Skagit head +12' T-12 sink tip
4+	4.50"	1.50"	10.5 oz	275 yd 30#	+100' 0.035" running line +750 grain Skagit head +18' T-17 sink tip

 

Lamson Reel Design
IT’S A WHOLE NEW SPIN ON IT
For 20 years, Waterworks-Lamson has set a bold benchmark for innovative fly reel architecture.
Large arbor, lightweight, sealed systems, zero maintenance, advanced materials, state of the art machining, innovative and enviable styling—the list is long.
The thing to remember is we were there in the beginning—pushing the envelope, refining ideas, changing how people thought about reels—and we’ve never stopped.
What’s that saying? “Plenty of time to sleep when you’re dead.”

CONICAL DRAG
We set out to engineer the best drag system possible: Zero start-up torque with adequate range. Smooth operation. Sealed from the environment. Reliable and maintenance free. Plus compact, light and technically simple. No sweat, right? We imagined a mechanical solution for a reel that probably seems obvious today: storing line on a large-circumference spool supported by a lightweight frame. But typical drag systems of the time were based on flat counter-rotating discs. Counterproductive. It occurred to us that the same surface area of discs could be configured into a pair of matched cones machined with angular precision. This resulted in a significant reduction in the diameter of the assembly, making it small, light and easy to seal. We also found proprietary friction materials that produced zero start-up torque and could run without lubrication.

POWER ARM
Due to our proprietary conical drag, we set out to develop a distinct and efficient frame. The Power Arm frame design is a way of aligning the structural support for the spool along the primary load path. The primary load path for any fly reel runs from the center of the drag core to the reel foot. It’s logical to put most of the material along that load path. Any distribution of material not aligned with the primary load path will result in either a structure that’s too flexible—or heavier than it needs to be. The Power Arm design uses the least amount of material to achieve the maximum stiffness.

INTEGRATED COUNTERBALANCE Another structural theme built into our reels: integrated counterbalance. Why hang a piece of hardware on a spool if there’s a simpler way? But simple isn’t always easier. Our earliest spools required a fair amount of trial and error to build the precise bias into the spool to counter the weight of the spin knob. For us, the elegance of eliminating a component and then using the resultant asymmetry as part of the design made all the effort worth it. This simple, logical, but often difficult feature became essential to the personality of our reels.