I finally received my Vanford and am a little disappointed with it. It is NOT worm driven as it's 1000 size and bigger brothers, and it has borrowed gears from something else that has/had an extra cross"X-Ship bar that is not installed on the 500 size, nor does it have the "long stroke spool". It had a slight ticking noise in anti reverse mode, but after a couple of evenings spinning it while sitting in the easy chair. the noise went away. I'm sure I can get another cross bar and maybe some other parts, the all CI4+ reel comes in at 4.9 oz. Really quick start up inertia on the light rotor. Not the very best components as is offered on the 1000 size, but I am half happy.

Yup. The Vanford 500F is a US market reprise of the JDM 2016 Soare CI4+ 500S. Neither has the long spool stroke worm drive or the extra main shaft bearing between the pinion and the shaft pusher. Both reels have a felt drag for finesse rather than a stack of carbon fiber discs. Both are extremely light at 4.9 oz. The Vanford has a larger line capacity at 190 yards of #2 test mono - the Soare had a shallow spool holding 125 yards of #2. Size 500 reels are gems designed for light line. Unfortunately they become harder to find every time Shimano and Daiwa redesign their product lines.

There's only so much machinery that can be stuffed in such a small package. For that matter, the Vanford 1000 and 2000 reels are still only 5.3 oz, but amazingly they have the worm drive and extra bearing. Personally, I wouldn't use any of the three in salt water, except under controlled circumstances. These reels aren't designed for brawling with big beasts.

I'm still waffling on whether or not I will buy a Vanford 500F.


Tom

Steve, I like a couple sheets of clean computer paper under each new project. The recycle bin next to the printer at work yielded a life time supply in one scoop. So what if one side is printed.

"Clean computer paper" hahaha I might at least get me a new shop rag to line my tray!

I forgot to mention in my original post that it had a horrible amount of side play on the main gear, I was able to find a .0015 washer shim and it was perfect without binding anything, another .005 shim added was too much!