How to dress vintage bait casting / spinning line?

Made some other form of traditional fishing tackle.
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Dave Burr
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Re: How to dress vintage bait casting / spinning line?

Post by Dave Burr »

Personally, I wouldn't use an old line of any sort especially for lure fishing. The stresses on your line are immense with repeated casts and hopefully some fair old battles with predators. I use a modern braid of 30lb test to give me plenty of reserve power to lunging takes with little flexibility in the set up and to retrieve lures from trees bushes, the far bank, the near bank, boats, the cyclist's hat.... well, you get the picture.

My reason for belt and braces is fish care. Leaving a lure in a fish should be avoided at all costs.

I'm not trying to be hight handed BB, but none of us fish with ancient line on our float rods do we? A modern braid will last years and not degrade even with no maintenance.I reckon you are asking for problems with the stuff on your sumptuous little reel.

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Mole-Patrol
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Re: How to dress vintage bait casting / spinning line?

Post by Mole-Patrol »

Thanks for your concerns and advice. However I will be using it for dead bait fishing from a boat on a 1.75lb tc cane rod and with no mechanical clutch on the reel, just whatever pressure I put on with my thumb. While the old line is off the reel I will be using 12lb mono, and the old line exceeds that breaking strain. If I didn't think that it was up to the job I wouldn't use it.

Now back to the original question - please :Beg:

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Re: How to dress vintage bait casting / spinning line?

Post by Kev D »

20200113_142945_resized_1.jpg
20200113_142125_resized(1).jpg
A couple of period American lines from a book .
Apart from the nylon ones ,most of the other lines pictured in my book are made of silk ,but there is this linen one!
In which case ,at guess as it's used on linen bow-strings , beeswax is the most likely treatment.
Or being Americans ,
they might have favoured dripping made from good 'ol b'ar-fat🙂🐻
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In order to shoot some close-ups, wildlife photographer ,the late Len Scapstillon, lured the orca to him by dressing as a seal.......

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Mole-Patrol
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Re: How to dress vintage bait casting / spinning line?

Post by Mole-Patrol »

Thanks for the info' :Hat:

According to some sources, cotton and linen braid lines were used as spinning lines before synthetic materials arrived on the scene. Nyking was Hardy's early version of nylon braid. I can find accounts of line dressing using the fat of a red deer or mutton and similar animal based products and a Hardy Cerolene dressing that was supplied in small tins rather like fly-line dressing is today. Cerolene sometimes comes up in auctions although I have no idea what it is. There are also references to Vaseline dissolved in paraffin or petroleum, but I would rather use something less volatile.

I might just go along with warming up some linseed oil and immersing the whole line complete with plastic winder for ten minutes or so and see what happens. Linseeed been recommended for silk lines and cotton has similar properties and absorbency.

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Re: How to dress vintage bait casting / spinning line?

Post by Kev D »

Hm,your mention of linseed oil has triggered something. l am half convinced l read that lines were " cleaned in kerosene ,soaked in linseed and waxed" ready for the Season.
It may have been a casual sentence in one of those "Boys' Backwoods Adventure" type books so may not be reliable.
In order to shoot some close-ups, wildlife photographer ,the late Len Scapstillon, lured the orca to him by dressing as a seal.......

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Re: How to dress vintage bait casting / spinning line?

Post by Santiago »

If you're going down the linseed oil root then you might be best using boiled linseed oil. Normal linseed oil is prone to rapid oxidation which can cause certain fabrics to ignite! It might also cause the line to harden after a few hours.
"....he felt the gentle touch on the line and he was happy"

Hemingway

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Mole-Patrol
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Re: How to dress vintage bait casting / spinning line?

Post by Mole-Patrol »

Thanks once again. I shall look for some in the bricos or failing that, online.

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Re: How to dress vintage bait casting / spinning line?

Post by Mole-Patrol »

Kev D wrote: Mon Jan 13, 2020 6:16 pm Hm,your mention of linseed oil has triggered something. l am half convinced l read that lines were " cleaned in kerosene ,soaked in linseed and waxed" ready for the Season.
It may have been a casual sentence in one of those "Boys' Backwoods Adventure" type books so may not be reliable.
Are you sure it wasn't Brokeback Mountain? :Hahaha:

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Re: How to dress vintage bait casting / spinning line?

Post by Kev D »

Mole-Patrol wrote: Mon Jan 13, 2020 8:34 pm
Kev D wrote: Mon Jan 13, 2020 6:16 pm Hm,your mention of linseed oil has triggered something. l am half convinced l read that lines were " cleaned in kerosene ,soaked in linseed and waxed" ready for the Season.
It may have been a casual sentence in one of those "Boys' Backwoods Adventure" type books so may not be reliable.
Are you sure it wasn't Brokeback Mountain? :Hahaha:
No, it might've been something like 10000 Miles Across Canada. It definately wasn't Fishing for Boys.
In order to shoot some close-ups, wildlife photographer ,the late Len Scapstillon, lured the orca to him by dressing as a seal.......

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