1st day of true sunshine and a temp. over 70 means...it's time to celebrate! My way, is to bring a little sunshine to an otherwise dark and dreary REEL.
This one is for Harvey Musselman (NFLCC), as a favor. It's a Pflueger Templar 500. It would go nice next to my 450 Harv!
Who would have thought that such a pretty reel was hiding underneath that weathered , black painted looking dunger . Great job Rick !
Does anyone know what magic there is to revitalize the handles too? Or does the return favour not go that far
Hmm, that's interesting about the handles. They look like painted wood whereas they are usually hard rubber. Probably just never noticed that they were sometimes different.
I think what you may have is an attempted reconstruction of broken grasps and the rubber color and texture just don't match. It's the look you get when you do a rubber sideplate repair with rubber "dust" and glue. If it was something on the surface, I'm sure Rick would have made it go away!
From everything I can see, comparing the 500 knobs to the distinctly "Hard Rubber" 450...the knobs on the 500 are NOT wood nor are they Hard Rubber. There's no "grain" at all (indicative of wood) and there are no mold lines on the inside cup of the grip (indicative of the hard rubber process).
There are what appear to be mold lines, running the length of each knob though. The finish (under the paint) to me is very similar to modern day composite. However, I don't see these knobs as modern re-contructions. Every other thing about the knobs, the handle base, shafts and peens say that these are age & wear appropriate with no tell tail "rework" marks anywhere.
Interesting side note: I oiled the grips, like you would with hard rubber. They came out "black", not chocolate brown like hard rubber.
Sure would be neat to confirm the origin of these odd-balls.
