The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

Evening gents , i recently purchased a trudex reel and i used it the first time on Saturday ,once home i grabbed a clith to dry the reel and the paint started flaking
I grabbed a bamboo skewer that was near by and very gently started scraping away at the paint , i was thinking of spraying it black anyway but now i have no choice , my question is
If i use stove enamel out of a can i need to cure it by warming it upto 200 oC , now i cant put it in the oven because of the handles and check but if i place it onto a grill on top of my woodburner i know it would cure but i am still worried about the plastic bits and the risk of it warping , any suggestions would be much appreciated

Hi Richard - I've got a Trudex with no paint on it all - I'm nut fussy about appearance - you should see my beaten up old Subaru - people call it the fish wagon. Id rather just have kit that works, I don't really care what it looks like. I horrify local anglers by Tippexing all my float rods with foot measurements and then Tippexing the top two feet in case I want to swap the float for a couple of swan at dusk.....

Richard, a good finish can be obtained if you clean all the old paint off then give it a coat of acid etch paint before the final black coats. Satin black is a good match to the original.

Wal.

Thanks gents , i do like the look of a well used reel but , this one now looks worse than well used

Richard,

You could strip the reel entirely but I'd regard the paint loss as part of you and the reel getting to know each other. If you wanted to bring it back to replicate mint condition you could spray it. I've sprayed classic car parts using Hammerite smooth finish and it does give a wonderful finish however, you really need to spray it in a warm space to get the best results somewhere about 21 degrees which I guess is a warm room. In that temperature the paint will cure – no need to cook it. What I wouldn't advise is going outside at this time of year – it's way too cold and damp for the paint to work as well as it can.

If you decide to spray you must get a proper breathing mask with particulate filters – if you can smell the paint you are spraying then you are breathing it in! I'd advise stripping the reel entirely and using a degreaser. Having done that don't touch it as that will just put finger oils back on the surface get some powder free latex gloves. And yes acid etch primer – Clostermans available on eBay is excellent and Halfords do one called UPol. If all that sounds a lot of hassle that because it is. Are you sure you want it to be pristine but non original?

I have Mitchell 300 that I've had for 25 or so years, it's just started to get some paint wear. At first I was a bit sad but that's part of using these lovely things. On balance I think wear from careful use is fine whilst damage, say by dropping, would annoy me no end. A friend ran over a cane rod in his car – he'd packed up but not put the rod in the boot… oooops

Thankyou Beresford , one thing i have noticed with the reel since the paint has come off , especially on the drum , is that it spins much more freely and for much longer , or is that
my imagination

I decided to strip and respray it in the end ,im quiet happy with the end result but in the process have taken the writing off the makers plate

That's a good job and pity about the badge, the one spare that Garry Mills doesn't have.

Maybe somebody could make one nowadays?

It never occured to me that the badge would disappear when i dropped the reel in the dettol