Handmade Tournament Reel

[Reelman]

I picked this reel up a while ago. I believe it was handmade for distance casting. I was hoping somebody would have a idea on who made it. I sure who ever made it made more for their self or to sell to other people for casting competitions. Or was it made by somebody trying to start a reel making business. As you can see the axle ends are cone shaped and when the reel is assembled it rests on 8 or 9 ball bearing on both sides. I Need to find a couple ball bearings for it. Who ever took it a part before me lost a couple.









Merv USA
www.reelman.net

[hurdpete]

Merv:

Just a couple of ideas on where to find ball bearings, once you know the diameter: transmission rebuild shops (valve body check balls), gas fitters (check balls), small engine repair shops (carburetor check balls) and under my workbench (if you're real quiet, you can hear them giggling at you from the shadows) . Most of the sources I found on the 'net are for ball bearings, or manufacturers who want to sell 10,000+ at a time (probably a few more than you need). BTW, there is a site, www.vxb.com,
which carries fishing reel ball bearings for reels like Daiwa, Shimano, and Fin-Nor in kits of 10 - might be useful to know for another project. Looking at the photos, it's also possible that you could convert the bearing setup to a ball bearing type without machining the bearing recesses. If you'll let us know the diameter, I'll look in my stash of oddballs and try to match some up.

Pete

[Warren Platt]

Merv,
Very interesting reel. Thanks for sharing it with us. Some type of aluminum alloy? My opinion is that it wasn't made for tournament distance casting. I would say that it has three strikes against it for such work. 1. Not free spool. 2. Friction from all the ball bearings. 3. Bar across the top of the spool that the line could rub against. My guess is that someone just wanted to make a very nice reel. Most likely more of a machinist than a fisherman. A fisherman wouldn't have taken this much time away from the water. If it were used for tournament distance casting it would have been in the Skish events where regular fishing reels unaltered from the manufacturer are used. Have my doubts that it would qualify. I'd like to hear others thoughts about this nice reel.
Warren

[Teal]

Hi,

I agree with Warren, I don't think it was made for tournament casting. It is similar to another hand-made aluminum reel from the early 1950s that I saw at the Wisconsin Dells or Medina MN (I can't remember which) show a few years back, it was more crude than this but also clearly the product of a machine shop. As I have written before on this site about ball bearings and bearing assemblies, they came into common use in the post-World War II era, which coincided with the end of tournament casting. Something about the feel of this reel hits me as a post-WWII product.

It is a fascinating example, however, of a hand-made reel. Nicely done one at that.

Cheers,

Dr. Todd[/i]

[SWIM JIG]

cool-thumb USA, REEL MAN, If YOOU send me just one of them I will match it up and mail back some! also check each one if any rust appears on any of them, REPLACE! also Pfluger also used that idea in one of their drag systems! My thoughts on your reel? Check the hand buolt tournoment reel on my ID on my site! its a hand built tournment reel, I , like you belive its a touroment reel, , the reels of the 40s thru 60s that had Diagrams in mags like Popular science, poular mechanics, as I recall didnt use spool spacers, (OK people I am ready to accept the (FLAK) anyway its a nice reel, that wooden spool spacer took some doing to put on. Your Ohio Conection On Lake ERIE , Col. Milton lorens 759 TERRA LANE AMHERST OHIO 44001-1116-07) a bit of thought, most bearings are using metric #s and have for past 75 years!

[Reelman]

The bearing from what the gauge reads are 1/16th inch. On the back plate of the reel you can see two circles one just to the right of the top screw and the other about 9 O'clock. They go all the way though. It looks like they plugged the holes. Like they changed their mind about placement of the posts. I have no idea on what are the different categories were in the casting tournaments. I thought there might be a non free spool competition as well as free spool. Maybe somebody knows and could tell us what medals were completed for in the tournaments.




Merv USA
www.reelman.net

[Warren Platt]

Merv,
The casting tournaments had a variation of casting events, using mainly three types of casting (revolving spool) reels. The distance events used the type of reel shown with Miltons posts, different weights made up the different events. The accuracy events were cast with reels like yours and many different makes like it (one was the 1740 Shakespeare). Usually very light spools and gears for fast start up and easy braking with the thumb. YOUR REEL COULD VERY WELL HAVE BEEN MADE FOR THE ACCURACY EVENTS. The third type of reel used was any reel just as it came from the factory (untampered with). These events begin in 1940 to make tournament casting more like fishing skills. Called SKISH events, and were for both distance and accuracy. The Heddon Pal P-41 was built for these events. Many other variables, but this gives you an idea of casting tournaments.
Warren

[Larry Sw]

So, What the heck did SKISH mean ?

Larry S

[Harvey]

SKISH is a combination of SKEET and FISh and was a tournament held by Shakespeare and South Bend to show off their products. The rules can be found in South Bend and Shakespeare catalogues. You threw weights at targets at diffrent distances. also included Fly and Spincast.

[Gabby]

Why would you put a BIG arbor on it if it wasn't just for casting...? Would it hold enough line with that arbor to actually fish with...?

[Warren Platt]

No problem with enough line for fishing, that is unless you're fishing in the ocean. I fish with antique equipment most of the time and I use an arbor anytime I can, you can still get a spool of line on the reel. A full spool makes for better casting!
Warren

[Bill Bush]

I think this is my first post to these boards, so be gentle. As I have personal knowledge of tournament casting, I will offer some input to the tournament casting questions.

"Skish" was (is) a combination of "skill" and "fish". It was designed to be an event using tackle that would be used in everyday fishing. Free spool reels could be used, but they had to have a leval wind system. If memory serves the rods had to be six foot, or less. A contestant made two casts at each of ten targets. A hit on the first target scored six points, with the second hit worth four. Unlike the accuracy events, close got zip. A perfect round was, of course, 100 points.

The governing body for the sport was the National Association of Angling and Casting Clubs, or NAACC.

The reels of choice in my day (1950's) were the Shakespeare 1973 and 1973D, Langley Lurecast, and The Heddon P-41. A few folks were using those new fangled free-spool reels from Sweden, but most found them too heavy for accuracy events. I did use one for skish distance.

I would disagree with Warren about the P-41 being made for tournament casting. It was used and worked well, but tournament casting had a limited following, even at it's peak. It was a fine fishing reel, that happened to be used for tournaments.

As for the original question: I'm not convinced that the reel was hand made. If the handle is original to the reel, and not taken from some other reel, it's a production item. Please, note that the knobs are molded plastic. The handle and reel look to be of similar material, so I'm thinking it is original.

[Teal]

Hi Bill,

Welcome to the board! Everyone here is pretty gentle except if you refer to Pennell as a manufacturer of reels and not as an Ed. K. Tryon trademark (just kidding Phil). Oh, yes, the whole Hendee Indian motorcycle thing usually gets a big reaction too.

Great comments about Skish, the only thing I knew about it came from Cliff Netherton's great 2-volume History of the Sport of Casting, which has a big section on it. Apparently there were even high school casting teams. Too bad it didn't catch on, maybe it will be revived with the renewed interest in Bass fishing.

I don't know if the reel was handmade or not, but I still don't believe it was a made as a tournament reel.

Always good to have another Texan on board!

Cheers,

Dr. Todd E.A. Larson

[Reelman]

The Handle is made of different material then the reel. The reel is made of a very light weight material probably aluminum or some alloy. The handle has been chromed. And feels almost as heavy as the reel. A magnet does not stick to either. The handle nut is the same material as the reel.

Merv
www.reelman.net

[Warren Platt]

Bill,
Good to have you on the board! Thanks for the insight about Skish tournaments and other views. Of course you're correct about the Heddon Pal P-41 being considered a fishing reel first because of limited number of tournament casters. I'll stick by my guns somewhat by saying that the P-41 was designed by Walter Willman, a National Casting champion and I'll guess that it was designed in the 1940's after the beginning of the Skish games. Heddon added the P-41L, which was an even lighter reel, and again I believe it was added for tournament work. I own many of Steve Aleshi's reels and he had 5 or 6 of the P-41L for different Skish events. While I've never fished with a P-41, I have never had anyone tell me that they thought it was a great fishing reel. Since there are so many of them around, they must have sold many of them for fishing though.
I think the handle on the aluminum reel we have been talking about was added from another reel. I don't see any reason that it couldn't have been used very nicely as an accuracy tournament reel, do you?
Warren

[Bill Bush]

Warren...One must consider all of the mentioned reels in the context of the times. Competition casters were always tinkering with their reels and had a great deal of input into makers designs. Aluminium was coming into it's own and manufacturers were racing to make lighter, faster, reels. In the post WWII era, there was an excess of machine tools and shops that had been making aluminum aircraft parts, sudenly, lost their contracts. A number of those shops went into the reel business. Zebco being a prime example. The tournament reels were never more than a small percentage of the market, although the influence was much greater.

Alas, the American casting reel market crashed with the introduction of the ABU 5000. Not because it was a great reel (it was and is), but because it would handle mono lines, which were becoming popular with the advent of spinning tackle. There was, to my hnowledge, no US reel that had the spool tolerances to handle mono. The period from 1946 to the late 50's was, in my opinion, the glory period for US reels. The advancements were rapid and the reels were cheap enough to put a performance reel into the hands of the average fisherman.

Yes, the reel in question could have been used as a tournament reel, but the proof of the pudding is in the tasting. Does it cast? After looking at it further, the body appears to be stamped, rather than machined. That's a difficult call, without a hands on inspection. For some reason, it makes me think of the Gulf Reel. There is no logical reason for that. It just does.