This post continues my revisit to early 19th century angling with a little more information on reels. In my original post of February 2011, I outlined my quest to recreate typical coarse fishing tackle in use during the 1840's but left out a lot of the fun stuff I learned along the way. One thing I discovered was that sophisticated multiplying reels were crafted by watchmakers in Kentucky as early as the 1820's but that style of reel was actually invented in England in the18th century.
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| A Clerk, Green & Baker Classic New York Style Ball Handle Reel |
Even though these reels represent the finest offerings of their time, I realized immediately that they were a little beyond my "shade tree" machinist's ability to recreate. Besides, even if I thought I could pull one off, I don't own the lathe to make it happen. What I was looking for was a simple and typical "winch" of the period that I knew I could copy and use. Multiplying reels were revolutionary and allowed for direct casting of line off the reel whereas simple winches were just for storing line.
First, a little history is in order. It's believed that the fishing reel originated in China, sometime around 300-400 AD based on depictions in surviving art.
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| First Fishing Reel |
Taking a giant leap forward to England, Thomas Barker mentioned a "wind" and provided a cryptic drawing of some kind of reel in his 1651 publication "Delight or the Art of Angling" and a little later Robert Venable used an illustration of a clampfoot reel in the front piece of his 1662 " The Experienc'd Angler or Angling Improved".
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| Venable's Front Piece, Clamp-Foot Reel detail |
By the late 18th century, it appears by all accounts that the reel was an accepted part of the angler's kit in Europe and in use by at least some gentlemen anglers in America.
I think it's safe to say that by the 1840's, the reel was considered an angling essential and I would imagine a typical American tackle shop might have offered a range of reels of varying qualities and styles. I assumed from the evidence that early reels were typically crafted of nickel silver or brass until a well crafted wooden version caught my eye.
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| Fantastic Early Wooden Reel |
This particular wooden clamp-foot reel is quite rare and turned up in an auction in the UK. As cool and early (perhaps too) as it is, I decided to make mine a reproduction of an all metal reel. I chose brass since it's easy to come by and easy to work with and I already have a brass scrap pile to dig through.
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| A Classic Mounted Spike-Foot Reel |
Style wise, early 19th century winches can be categorized according to how they attached to the rod. According to some historians, the spike-foot reel may have predated the clamp-foot which predated the plate-foot. Are you with me so far ?
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| Salter's Plate and Clamp-Foot Reels |
What I know is, at the time of T. F. Salter's "The Angler's Guide" (1823) the clamp-foot and plate-foot co-existed as seen in his illustration. Salter's plate-foot is early enough in style to have a padding attached so as not to mar the rod. These stitched on pads are fairly common on surviving clamp-foot reels.
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| A Nice Classic Clamp-Foot Winch with a Missing Knob |
I started to warm-up to the clamp-foot variety as it was certainly around in the 1840's and even up to the 1860's by some accounts. Once I gathered enough information, I made a scale drawing of my reproduction and began scrounging up the brass stock. I previously mentioned the absence of a lathe in my shop. A considerable deficit for the well-rounded craftsman of today but for me there's always room for improvising a substitute.
Years ago I discovered that you can center and spin small, flat pieces of metal on a drill press if you support the arbor from below. My arbors usually consist of a small diameter bolt with nuts and washers to clamp the work. The support from below is held in a vise that I clamp to the drill base. Most of my milling and cutting is done with a well-braced Dremel tool using their cut-off wheels and circular files. Safety goggles are a must as is a steady hand. Laying everything out first with a sharpie is also very helpful.
Warning, I do not recommend this as a practice but included it here as a document of my work.
When all the circular pieces of the reel were finished, I cut the pillar rods to length and turned their ends diameters down for eventual peening. The other end of the pillars were drilled and tapped for screws.
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| My Finished Clamp-Foot Reel |
Images by Author
One of the little challenges was to accurately die stamp the cupped ends of the reel's spindle so they could rotate smoothly on center, in their proper recesses.
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| View of the Opposite Side, Showing Screws |
The clamp foot part of the reel is riveted to a stout bar that helps to maintain the reels integrity as a stable cage for the spindle. One end of this bar was riveted to the outside plate with two pins to prevent twisting. When it came to making the actual clamp, I found it difficult to get a tight bend at the bottom, so I cheated and hard soldered on separate pieces at the proper angle. I really love the way the heart shaped screw turned out. It's a great period detail.
The final challenge on this project was creating a functional clicker mechanism. Luckily I had made some notes and a drawing of my antique English reel's clicker when I rebuilt it.
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| The Inner Workings of My Clicker |
So there you have it, it turned out to be a "real" adventure after all but worth it.
