Wanted: piece of a Philbrook & Payne marbled side plate

[EclecticGuy]

Hello all, a few of us over on Clark's are attempting to rediscover the materials and process that were used to produce the beautiful marbled side plates on early Philbrook and Payne reels. The original threads started by Holireels. John has made phenomenal progress on recreating the beautiful Philbrook & Payne red and black marbled side plates. Several of us are joining in, in an effort to figure out the materials and process on how these were created. As you will read in the thread, I have contacted Jim Hardman, who has written an article about early synthetic materials in gun making (but mentions other objects including a P&P reel). Jim has completed a companion piece on reels that will be published in the American Museum of Fly Fishing's quarterly newsletter (soon we hope!).

Jim is willing to share his (and his family's) vast knowledge in this area. He recommended that we "we need to determine the melting point of this side plate material" and the way to do that is to obtain a shard from a broken P&P marbled side plate. So, the search is on to find this holy grail! If you have a piece you would be willing to share or know someone (who knows someone (who knows someone)) that may have one, please contact me at mhackney (at) eclecticangler.com. Once we know the melting point of the material, it helps pin down the process and conditions under which the parts were molded and gives insights in to the resins that may have been used. If you have experience in naturally occurring resins and rosins, I'd like to chat about that too!

cheers,
Michael