The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

Beautifully made piece of equipment!

..The latest up date on the project so far.

The spindle, together with the hub has been the most exacting component to make and despite one-or two setbacks, enough have been made now for those reels currently under construction.
Because of limitations, each one had to be made individually as a single, complete item before moving on to the next so yes, it has taken rather a long time!
I have matched each spindle with it's own hub and lapped them together as a mated pair, so although in theory they ought to be interchangeable with another set, in the interests of accuracy and long reel life, they are not.

The spindles have been made from a very high quality steel-which came with it's own Certificate of Conformity-and the first step in making them was to turn down a length of it so that it would go through the bore of the lathe..





These are a series of pictures to show how each spindle was made. Please click on each photo for a better picture.
The first stage was to rough out the excess material. This steel contains quite a bit of chromium in it and big cuts on auto feed proved a bit troublesome for the Myford so I did this bit by hand..





Next, I roughed in the tapered step..





...and put the groove in, though I do stress that this is neither finished to the correct angle, nor final size. It is just to remove unwanted material before the finishing process to prevent distortion.

At this stage, the hardened steel bearing is put in..





We now have the correct lead angle and are roughing out the concentric location diameter behind the flange and also starting to finish some of the others before lapping and polishing..





After each one was then parted off, they were finished to length and a hole drilled and tapped for the fixing screw.
I made the screws from 316 Stainless steel and radius slotted them for the screwdriver previously, recorded by Leigh on a video.

Anyway, here are the finished spindles, hubs and screws all together..





The bearing ends of the spindles and fork grooves have now all been lapped in and polished.





That's all for now..Thank you for watching.

wm+

Wonderful as normal Sir, I used to love working with 316, as you know its a marine grade stainless steel, apart from gold and titanium its the most corrosion resistant metal there is.
You really need to try carbide tipped tooling, for roughing out and parting/grooving there is no equal.

I love the bespoke aspects of your reels , lapping in each spindle to match with a particular hub is fascinating in such a detailed and crafted approach .
Great update as usual.

I have run out of words to express how superb this project is turning out, no pun intended!

Absolutely wonderful Leszek, thanks again for this insight into your craftsmanship and engineering skills.

I think I will keep a copy of all the photos to this post on a disc just in case they should go astray.

photobucket has totally ruined many really good posts, I don't want it to happen again with this one..

Wal.

Leszek, You never cease to amaze me with your attention to detail and skillful workmanship

Nearly missed this instalment.

Superb as ever Leszec. Time consuming but ever so rewarding I would feel, to have a batch of top class components ready for use.

Again, superb

Like exquisite chess pieces. Stunning and turning me green with envy as always.

..A few more little pieces toward the project!

This actually took a lot more time than expected..but I have been finding that is the case in a lot of things of late. Something to do with the passing of time!!

There are still quite a few bits & pieces to make yet, but here is a start toward the handle and winder assemblies.
The winders on the original 1939 reels were made from black 'Ebonite' and the chances of actually obtaining the original material stock were two; slim and none. I had intended to use black Delrin as a substitute, when, quite out of the blue, received a super letter from our own "Dokterhoo" with the offer of several pieces of off white "Xylonite", some sticks of ebony, some buffalo horn and-unbelievably-some black "Ebonite"! Not a substitute, but the genuine article!! all posted free of charge!
Therefore a massively big "Thank You" to you Sir! What a wonderful place this forum is..! This has been cut up today and there is enough ebonite to make 14 handles, so the first seven reels will have authentic winders from the original material..!!!

The actual handle spindle and recessed cup are from one piece of special metal and I have now made enough for all requested reels, plus a spare set in case of disaster..
It was quite tough to turn and the first step was to rough out the shape..
Click on the pictures if they don't appear to be clear.





Then the tapping hole was drilled right through..





...and the thread tapped in. very slowly and VERY carefully!.





Tapping small threads in tough metal is always risky, but this green stuff is absolute magic!





The next step was to produce the recess at the back. This is for the winder to go in to prevent line trapping..





Finally, each one was parted off to length.





After they were made thus, they were re-worked from the other end; being taken back to length and the special radius form put in on the top.
I ground the radius form on a piece of HSS (High Speed Steel) for consistency.





You can see the radius on this closer picture..





I haven't used the Ebonite yet, but here is a start with the Buffalo horn, which was first cut up to maximise the number which could be got out of one piece.





These pieces were carefully rough turned..





They don't look anything yet, but that's for next time..

wm+