Unmarked reel identification

[seruga]

I just started working on this reel today. It is heavily corroded but after taking it apart it appears salvageable.
The reel is unmarked but has some interesting features.
I rooted around the site but could not find a reference that would help me identify the reel.
The foot nor the side plates are stamped but the numbers 13 3 are engraved on the bridge and the number 13 is engraved on the inside of the left side plate.
The reel is a 2" model with a 2 3/4 " spool diameter.
The reel is hard rubber but there is too much verdigris to tell if it is plated or german silver. Some soaking will reveal more about the material.
Is anyone able to point me in the right direction to get me started on correctly identifying this reel.
As always, the information the group provides on this site is terrific.








Chris

[seruga]

Kept looking and found some references - Definitely Montague - salt water 300 yard free spool generic reel - too bad any plate engravings have been lost

[john elder]

Ah, you have your work cut out for you! Don’t worry about engravings in plating. Any marks would have been stamped into the hard rubber side plates. Its worth a look by holding at a slant into the light, but i don’t see any hints there. Unsolicited advice… pick your battles

[40fordflathead]

Fantastic reel, have fun with the clean up.

[seruga]

after soaking, some light scrubbing, and a few days of penetrating oil in select spots I was able to get the reel apart. The only casualty was a rusted screw on the foot (I think I read in an Orca article written by Phil White that the foot on a reel of this type was screwed in not pinned - I will confirm that when I tap out what remains in the foot and foot pillar). There is a stubborn pillar screw and the free spool lever is frozen to the eccentric but some more penetrating oil should free up those items over time. The metal is confirmed to be german silver. Although the verdigris did leave some pitting, the metal should clean up reasonably well. Careful sanding of the hard rubber should bring it back to it's original color. Soaking did not uncover and engraving on the hard rubber plates.
All that being said, I absolutely respect the comments shared so far. However, given the initial success I think it is worth forging ahead to see what can come of this effort.

[klonder]

Keep up the good work. With some tlc they generally come back nicely.

[seruga]

about 95% complete - still need to dress the screws and repair the foot. A fair amount of pitting but given the abuse it took not too bad. It was worth the effort. the reel looks good and it spins freely- simple design, quality materials, expert manufacturing - nice reel

here is the before and after

[john elder]

Nice work! Hmmm, the more i look at that reel, the more i’m thinking Cozzone is worth consideration !

[seruga]

thank you John.

Interesting thought re: Cozzone. A few interesting features of this reel:

1) the crank and knob are meisselbach. I have a meisselbach surf reel with the exact same handle. Maybe there was some parts sharing going on with the early cozzone company.
2) the free spool lever is located between 6:30 and 7:00. Placement in that location is similar to the placement of a schoenfeld gutter sea gull I have and other cozzone reels I have seen
3) the free spool lever is curved with a small, round, hard rubber adornment on the top of the lever. An unusual feature - not all that common
4) the reinforced hard rubber plates are like montague designs
5) the clicker button is a large, smooth, round button.
6) the oil caps on left and right plate are shallow, round and have knurled edges. Both caps have small pivots that the spool rides on.

not sure if any of these features can help draw a conclusion on this reel but you never know. I will start digging to see what I can find along the Cozzone lines.


either way this is a simple but nice reel.

[john elder]

Ah, on further review, we are missing too many Cozzone signatures. Never mind

[seruga]

John raised the question about this not being a montague. It was worth a further look. The Meisselbach handle is odd. The montague style foot is a clue and this free spool lever adds to the mystery.

Is this a JVH free spool lever?

[Nick in NY]

Beautiful job with the clean up! You’ll give Mr. Elder a run for his $ as far as the cleanup/restoration goes. The reels a Montaque but early...note the lower levels typical of the Imperials as well as the foot/caps Etc. The handle is probably original to the reel but like l noted it’s early. The screw on the handle for knob replacement is typically found on the earlier reels. About 30 years ago l owned a version with a 6” side plate...one of my biggest mistakes was parting with it, I’ll never see another unless owner should part with it...back to the reel beautiful job on the cleanup! Tight lines Nick in New York
Holzman/salt water Kentucky reel collector/big game reel collector!

[RonG]

Here's some pages from Montague catalogs.

[seruga]

thank you Nick and Ron. The information is appreciated. The styled free spool lever with the hard rubber accent appears to be influenced by a vom hofe. Did they collaborate with montague?

Chris

[RonG]

In the first catalog figure above, at the bottom of it, the Model 8010 includes "With Disengaging Gears for Surf Casting." The Model 8010 is not shown in the picture.

[klonder]

Well done!
The plates are stellar. Black like new. Would you mind describing your resto process of the HR?
Thanks.

[seruga]

Thank you for the catalog reference Ron.

As far as the process goes I followed ORCA guidelines but because of the extensive corrosion I added a couple of twists.

All the polishing and sanding was done by hand.

No machines were used in the process

1) soak the entire reel in simple green HD pro to dissolve dirt and grease - 1 part HD to 10 parts water - for 9 hours
2) soak the entire reel in palmolive and water for 9 hours
3) safely disassemble as much of the reel as possible - in this case everything came apart but one pillar screw and the free spool lever screw would not release from the ecentric so I left those in tact
4) soak any parts after disassembly that had remaining grease in the HD bath for 6 hours
5) soak in 50/50 vinegar and water for 9 hours - parts that did not clean up equally were soaked for another 3 hours
6) soak in palmolive and water for 9 hours to neutralize the acid
7) polish all parts except hard rubber with eagle one never dull to see what was coming back
8 wet sand hard rubber parts using 600-800-1200-1500-2500 progression
9) wet sand metal with remaining corrosion using 1200-1500-2500 progression - this removed the rest of the corrosion but this also helped smooth out some of the pitting
10) polish all metal and hard rubber with turtle wax polishing compound to remove small scratches. This product comes in a black bottle and is made to remove light to medium scratches and imperfections
11) polish all metal and hard rubber with maas metal polish -
12) the final touch was a polishing of only the hard rubber with savinelli stem polish. This polish is used to dress high quality ebonite pipe stems. It is made in Italy. It comes in a very small can, is expensive, and takes forever to get. I bought it from a smoke shop in the UK. This final step darkened the hard rubber by 2 to 3 shades.

All in all not too bad. It was an enjoyable enjoyable process. This was closer to a preservation rather than a restoration because of the metal pitting. The pitting is not bad - I have seen worse. It does not detract from the beauty of the reel but the metal is not as smooth as the original reel.

The reel is now safely preserved for someone else to hopefully enjoy 100 years from now.

[kyreels]

Brilliant. Great description of the restoration process. I follow your logic in the process. Interesting variations from the ORCA restoration handbook which could benefit from adoption of some methods. Thanks for the contribution. Maybe we should move this post to the Cleaning and Restoration forum.