Making an Aerial-Match

[Keston]

WOW !

[Reedling]

They look gorgeous.

[Harry H]

Stuff of dreams, brilliant

[PershoreHarrier]

Thanks for the opportunity Leszek to be one of the testers especially being an expert in nothing at all but a great joy to catch some reasonable fish with an exquisite reel.

[CrayCane]

Superb, Beautiful!!

[LuckyLuca]

My thanks too Leszek!

If anyone is curious, YEs they are as good as they look!

[Snape]

I am the fortunate person to currently have the trial model and used it yesterday on the Warks Avon.
It is truly sublime (although WM+ says it has lots of faults as it is the prototype, I can't see any!)
Sadly the perch and chub weren't coming out to play but a nice roach saved the blank.

[Liphook]

And a lovely plump roach it is too

[Barbelseeker]

Nice 4-some, roach, float reel and rod.

[Frank-Berlin]

Dear Sir,

I like your reel so much. Do you sell them?
I am very interested.
Best regards Frank

Part 1. Research.

This is something I have had in mind for quite a while and which will hopefully be started in the New Year.

As I understand it, the original Allcock reel was apparently only made for a short period from 1939 being discontinued thereafter and the actual number of reels made that survive today seem to be much sought after, more likely because of it's scarcity value amongst collectors rather than practical design perfection; although having said that, it is a very good design indeed.

The purpose of this project is to totally scratch-build one, using such means that I already have-which is going to be a challenge-as a step by step, illustrated forum topic.
The greatest difficulty by far and away is going to be defining the precise measurements and sizes. Without an actual reel on the workbench to draw up, there could regrettably be a lot of "guesstimates" on many details but fortunately, there are some good photographs on the Internet from which to scale up and base guesses on.

I know that Chris Lythe has already made a tribute version-and hastily offer my most grateful thanks to the Forum member who so kindly offered to place his copy at my disposal, but I have no way of knowing if that is either just his (C.L.) own version, or indeed, a measured and full scale copy of the real thing-which is my own intention as far as the line drum and backplate are concerned, (although I have had a few thoughts about changing the ratchet knob to a rim lever check..)

The first step out of necessity has to be producing a proper working drawing with sizes and tolerances to work from.
The only definite size which I have-so far-is that the width between the line drum plates is 9/16". The catalogue gives the diameter at 4" but what that actually refers to is unclear. "Four inches" seems to be a very loose tolerance amongst some other reels so described which I have measured thus far. Though not vital, the actual diameters of both line drum plates and backplate are nevertheless important because everything else is relative to them.

This is where I need your help, if you can.
If anyone out there knows of anyone who knows anybody who both has one of these reels-and is able to accurately use measuring instruments such as as micrometers and Vernier calipers, I would dearly like to hear from them over the next three months, say, up to end of December.
I know that I have already asked about this, but am asking again, just in case somebody missed it...I live in hope, no matter how slight!

I would like to also say a very big "Thank You" to the two members who have been in touch with me, offering their treasured reels for measurement, but because of my own limitations, I am no longer able to travel such long distances to take advantage of their generosity, but thank you again anyway.

As soon as I have some sizes, the project begins.....

Regards to all,

wm+