I figured I post this while I remember everything I did. This is the result of the bowling ball fiasco that I tackled last weekend. I'm going to explain
some of the things I did here in case others may feel foolish enough to do this sort of thing. I have read all the pinned tutorials on the forum and added a
couple things of my own. Actually, some of the things I did came from rebuilding guitars - my other hobby.
I lucked into an ugly little Pflueger Golden West 80 yd reel on eBay - I guess nobody had enough courage to try to reclaim it since it looked to be in dire straits. I got it for a relative pittance (at least for a GW). The pics were almost scary, and the old braided line had to be chisled off! When I got the reel, it didn't look quite so bad, but it did need a lot of work. Here are the "BEFORE" pics:
Pretty dirty, but it has possibilities.
Major corrosion on the spool - this worried me!
Two chunks of rubber missing - one pretty substantial.
More corrosion . . .
Butt-ugly handle - chewed by a Muskie?
Innards looked good!
Since I lack restraint, my first move was to see if I could shine things up a bit. I used a metal cleaner/polish on the metal parts first, and then went over the whole thing with 1500 and 2000 grit sandpaper. On the rubber, I used a combination of rubbing compound followed by 3M Perfect It and Finesse It polishing compounds. Before I use the reel, I'll give it a coat of auto polish - just to seal things in a little. I let the metal parts soak in the metal cleaner for awhile and then wiped them down - that made it easy to get them cleaned up. Once I got the parts shined up, I was ready to start making things up.
Next came the bowling ball incident. I figured I could use either a patch fabricated from the ball to fill the missing rubber on the reel, but I really don't have the tools or patience to get everything matched up nicely enough. So I collected a bunch of bowling ball sawdust and filings for a different approach. Using some picture framing parts, I created a dam around both sides of the broken part - here are some pics of that:
Dam for patching solution.
Then, I mixed up some 90 minute epoxy and stirred in the sawdust until I had a fairly thick paste-like slurry - thick enough to stick a Q-tip in without it falling over. Then I spread the mixture into the crack and let it harden. On the smaller crack on the other plate, I just used painters tape to set the boundaries of the repair.
The slurry flows out pretty well as it sets up.
After waiting a number of hours for things to harden, I filed, sanded, polished, and shined the patched spots until they were as close to the rest of the reel as possible. Not a perfect match, but you'd need to be looking quite closely to really notice the patched areas.
The final task was to replace the handle - I initially wanted to find a replacement, but there were none to be found. Bill at onePfoot offered to help me out, but I thought I'd give it a try myself (I still might be needing his help, though). A fellow on the ORCA board suggested the method I eventually used (with some variation). Unfortunately, I didn't take any pics of this, but it's pretty straightforward. First, I shaped a handle using ebonite from the bowling ball. I used my Dremel as a mini-lathe, and got the handle formed out nicely. Then I sawed a slot length-wise along the handle in order to fit it onto the shaft (I didn't want to cut off the rivet top of the shaft). I next cut a sliver of ebonite the width of the shaft slot and epoxied the sliver into the slot. Finally, I filed and sanded the handle round and smooth (well, mostly). The only problem I had was I forgot to coat the handle shaft with Vaseline, and of course, the handle epoxied onto the shaft - I had to get the soldering iron out to heat the shaft from the ends to loosen the glue. What an idiot!!!!! While the handle is a little stiff and not too shiney, I think it will work. But I may decide to redo the handle if it doesn't loosen up a bit more.
I finally got the whole thing together, and this is the result. I'm very happy with the way things turned out. This one's going on the Payne 98 (Zietak blank) that I'm putting together this winter:
Nice logo!
I'd like to thank Bulldog for his advice and tutorials, and also thanks to those who helped me with the bowling ball! This was a fun and rewarding little project!
Dean D
I lucked into an ugly little Pflueger Golden West 80 yd reel on eBay - I guess nobody had enough courage to try to reclaim it since it looked to be in dire straits. I got it for a relative pittance (at least for a GW). The pics were almost scary, and the old braided line had to be chisled off! When I got the reel, it didn't look quite so bad, but it did need a lot of work. Here are the "BEFORE" pics:
Pretty dirty, but it has possibilities.
Major corrosion on the spool - this worried me!
Two chunks of rubber missing - one pretty substantial.
More corrosion . . .
Butt-ugly handle - chewed by a Muskie?
Innards looked good!
Since I lack restraint, my first move was to see if I could shine things up a bit. I used a metal cleaner/polish on the metal parts first, and then went over the whole thing with 1500 and 2000 grit sandpaper. On the rubber, I used a combination of rubbing compound followed by 3M Perfect It and Finesse It polishing compounds. Before I use the reel, I'll give it a coat of auto polish - just to seal things in a little. I let the metal parts soak in the metal cleaner for awhile and then wiped them down - that made it easy to get them cleaned up. Once I got the parts shined up, I was ready to start making things up.
Next came the bowling ball incident. I figured I could use either a patch fabricated from the ball to fill the missing rubber on the reel, but I really don't have the tools or patience to get everything matched up nicely enough. So I collected a bunch of bowling ball sawdust and filings for a different approach. Using some picture framing parts, I created a dam around both sides of the broken part - here are some pics of that:
Dam for patching solution.
Then, I mixed up some 90 minute epoxy and stirred in the sawdust until I had a fairly thick paste-like slurry - thick enough to stick a Q-tip in without it falling over. Then I spread the mixture into the crack and let it harden. On the smaller crack on the other plate, I just used painters tape to set the boundaries of the repair.
The slurry flows out pretty well as it sets up.
After waiting a number of hours for things to harden, I filed, sanded, polished, and shined the patched spots until they were as close to the rest of the reel as possible. Not a perfect match, but you'd need to be looking quite closely to really notice the patched areas.
The final task was to replace the handle - I initially wanted to find a replacement, but there were none to be found. Bill at onePfoot offered to help me out, but I thought I'd give it a try myself (I still might be needing his help, though). A fellow on the ORCA board suggested the method I eventually used (with some variation). Unfortunately, I didn't take any pics of this, but it's pretty straightforward. First, I shaped a handle using ebonite from the bowling ball. I used my Dremel as a mini-lathe, and got the handle formed out nicely. Then I sawed a slot length-wise along the handle in order to fit it onto the shaft (I didn't want to cut off the rivet top of the shaft). I next cut a sliver of ebonite the width of the shaft slot and epoxied the sliver into the slot. Finally, I filed and sanded the handle round and smooth (well, mostly). The only problem I had was I forgot to coat the handle shaft with Vaseline, and of course, the handle epoxied onto the shaft - I had to get the soldering iron out to heat the shaft from the ends to loosen the glue. What an idiot!!!!! While the handle is a little stiff and not too shiney, I think it will work. But I may decide to redo the handle if it doesn't loosen up a bit more.
I finally got the whole thing together, and this is the result. I'm very happy with the way things turned out. This one's going on the Payne 98 (Zietak blank) that I'm putting together this winter:
Nice logo!
I'd like to thank Bulldog for his advice and tutorials, and also thanks to those who helped me with the bowling ball! This was a fun and rewarding little project!
Dean D
