Alcedo vs. Cargem?

[redrooster]

Good evening everyone. I'm considering buying either the Cargem Mignon or the Alcedo Micron.... Anybody with any experience of these two? I realize parts are scarce on both, perhaps more so with the Cargem though. Any other reason to go one way or the other? Thanks in advance for any help.

[alantani]

somebody help.  i have no idea!

[foakes]

Hi RR --

Both of these tiny vintage Italian reels are of similar shape and quality -- although few parts will interchange outside of a few screws.

High quality -- expensive in their day (mid 50's) -- plus expensive and sought after now -- more for collector than user value, however.

If using either of these on a regular basis -- after a complete restore, cleaning, and lubrication -- my recommendation would be to get another one for back-up parts.

If putting in a collection -- just restore and display.

If using for your main reel -- also consider the Mitchell 408, D.A.M. Quick 265 Microlite, Penn 716, or a Penn 420.  Parts are more readily available for these -- and they will perform well, plus not cost as much in most cases.  There are also the Daiwa Mini-Mites or 500's & 700's.  Gold or silver.  Gold has bearings, silver has brass bushings.  Bearings can be installed in the silvers -- they just drop in place, and only require 2.

All personal preferences in my case and yours -- let us know what you end up getting.

Glad to help further if needed.

Best,

Fred

[oc1]

I read about Alcedo Micron after seeing this thread.  Then the name kept coming up again when looking for ultra light reels to go on a long ultra light casting and spinning rod.  The rod was made from an inexpensive 2 wt, 9 ft fly rod blank and it seems to cast a small jig the same distance regardless of which reel I put on it so.  The details about the rod are in a thread I hijacked from myself here:
http://alantani.com/index.php?topic=17398.0

This looked like an opportunity to throw good money after bad so I bought an old Alcedo Micron to put on the rod.  This Alcedo Micron example is not pretty, it was heavily used, it is heavily worn, the medallion is missing (common problem), but it seems to work fine.  I did some test casting and sort of fell in love with it.  I don't know how to describe it, but it is the same feel and sound you get from any solid spinning reel of that era like the Penn, Shakespeare and DAM Quick, but it's really tiny.  If you're younger, you couldn't appreciate the feel/sound as these old spinners would seem much too heavy and rough by today's standards.

I don't know how old this example is and would appreciate any information or educated guesses you might have.  The foot serial number is BB345.  It is from the same period as the much nicer example that Fred showed above. There are other photos on the web of Alcedo Micron with a different handle that is more stylish and has that post-Sputnik, ray gun, space robot look about it.  The roller guide on mine is metal, not agate.



After test casting, the next step seemed to be breaking it down and doing a full service.  Right?  Wow, what a terrible idea that was.

 

It was packed with brown bearing grease.  The grease was skinned over in areas where it was not disturbed but was still liquid (or had again become liquid) around the moving parts.  My guess is that no one had been into it in twenty to thirty years.  As it unfolded, I realized it had been used and serviced a lot in its day and the other guys were almost as impatient and inept as me.

Please excuse the photos.  They were taken as parts were removed so I would remember how to get it back together but I did not think to take photos after cleaning and as it was being reassembled.  

The handle knob is plastic.  The drag washer is felt.  Everything else is metal.  The screws and many parts are magnetic.

There are two chromed and checkered nuts on the main gear shaft to take tension off the handle and allow it to fold.  They had been turned with pliers often.  There is a pin holding the handle to the end of the main gear shaft and it would almost fall out by itself once the two nuts are backed off and the tension is removed.

The section of exposed main gear shaft that accommodates the two chromed nuts looks awkward to me.

Inside that there is another chromed nut with a set screw to adjust the amount of lateral play in the main gear shaft.  The set screw was removed but the nut would not budge.  I finally had to put a pair of vice grips on the nut (metal to metal) to get it to move and the outside of the once-chromed nut was badly scared in the process.  After one or two revolutions it unscrewed freely.  Later, when the main gear was cleaned I found that the threads had been mashed under this nut and it looks like someone tried to take if off without removing the set screw.

The left side plate, eccentric, main gear, AR dog and AR selector button can then be removed.  The AR dog is 1 mm thick metal.  On this one the dog is cracked but it still works and does not flex under load.   A pin through the frame keeps the AR selector button from falling out but mine had been replaced with a piece of wire.  The eccentric has wear marks where it rides on the retaining screw but looks fine.  The dog rachet on the main gear looks fine.  The main gear itself looks worn, the teeth are uniformly rounded, but it is really beefy and there is little chance of failure.  

Under the spool are two thin metal washers sandwiching a felt drag washer.  The felt is not in the best of condition.  I tried replacing it with carbontex, tried delrin, and tried leather.  With carbontex or delrin it would go from no drag to lock down with a slight turn of the drag knob.  Leather is more compressible and gives more range in the knob, but the felt works best and is very smooth when loaded with Cal's

The bail was removed and it looks fine except the coil spring under the bail was distorted.  The bail guide roller works great and is not grooved.  It appears that the roller can be removed but the shaft screw is stuck and I did not want to force it.  The bail trip lever is held in place by a pivot screw and spring.  The lever is worn under the pivot screw and the hole is slightly wallowed out but it works.  There are two posts in the bottom of the rotor that trip the lever so the rotor may move up to 180 degrees before flipping the bail.

The spool shaft was removed from a shaft sleeve that is attached to the pinion. There is a hex nut in the front of the spool shaft sleeve that looks like it would be removed to release the rotor cup and pinion.  I put the main gear in to help hold the pinion, and found a socket to fit the nut, but could not turn it.  I was afraid to put the cracked dog in to help hold the main gear which would, in turn, help hold the pinion so the nut could be turned.  I can't tell if is really a hex nut or if it is pressed to the sleeve,  I can't tell if it is normal or reverse thread but tried both ways without over doing it.  While wondering what to do next I realized that the back end of the pinion is chewed up where someone may have tried to jam it with something.  I suspect someone cracked the dog while trying to turn that hex nut too.  Then I noticed the ball bearing peaking out from under the front of the pinion.  The outer race is pressed into place or integrated into the frame.  There is no cage around the balls.  If that hex screw is removed releasing the rotor and pinion, all those tiny balls are going to fall out.  At this point in the process I chickened out and decided to go no further.



By looking through a cut-out in the rotor cup I think you can access everything to lubricate it.  Inside the crank case there is a crack between the pinion and frame where grease can be worked into the bearing.  The inside of the spool shaft sleeve can be lubricated from both ends.  The sonic cleaner had stripped away the old grease so I just slapped blue yamaha grease on everything and started to reassemble.

It only took about two hours to get the AR dog, dog spring and AR selector button back in place.  One end of the spring is peened into the right side plate.  You need three or four tiny little hands to hold everything in place while the selector button is inserted.

It took another couple of hours to get the bail spring back in place.  Working on the spring with some forceps and needle pliers to get all the coils back in line was the key. to making everything fall into place,

It took about an hour to get the bail trip lever to engage and disengage properly too.

The pin on the AR selector button will be replaced when I can find the right size stainless leader wire to replace the cold steel wire the previous person used.

I will never try to take this reel apart again.  At least not until something breaks.  It was a lot of work to replace some brown grease with some blue grease and finally get it to run as smooth as it did when it arrived in the mail.  The most serious damage to this particular reel seems to have been inflicted by good-intentioned, but less adept owners like me.  Next time I'll just remove the spool and left side plate and leave it in the sonic cleaner until it's clean enough to re-grease.  Everything is accessible enough to lubricate without taking stuff apart.

Despite all, I'm confident this reel can still go fishing.  It is so over-built and rugged to begin with that it is still very strong and tight even after all the wear and owner-inflicted damage.  It was not designed to be used with ten pound line, especially ten pound braid.  But, I don't think it can be blown up using ten pound line either.  Best of all, it is just a really sweet little rig.... and I don't even like spinning reels.

A troublesome issue is corrosion resistance.  After buying it I found where a guy says it should never ever be taken to saltwater. Uh-oh.  Hopefully, keeping it well-greased will be enough to prevent corrosion.  Taking good care of stuff is not my strong suit but I'll try.  I don't know... maybe it's sacrilegious to take a classic old freshwater reel into saltwater.  You are welcome to chastise me for it.  But, it's a rag and not a shelfy.  It would not even make a good parts reel because the most of the important parts are already damaged.  We'll see how it goes.
-steve

[foakes]

Nice work, Steve --

Good education as well as good communication to everyone.

Best,

Fred

[oc1]

Oops... I take it back Fred.  This one is not the same vintage as yours.  The handle is different.  

BTW, since the medallions always fall of there is a guy in Malaysia that is making reproduction Alcedo Micron medallions.  What a niche market that is.  In my case, the reproduction medallion would cost almost as much as the reel.

And another by-the-way, I read that the gearing system developed for the Alcedo Micron was copied by every other spinning reel manufacturer after its release in the early 1950's and is still the basis for spinning reel design today.  It is where it all began.  The knock-offs using the same design but less durable components eventually put Alcedo out of business.

-steve

[oc1]

The wind and rain and spring tides finally laid down enough for the bonefish to start feeding in two to three feet of water.  A good time to fish with the Alcedo Micron.  

It took about a half hour of casting to remember why I hate spinning gear.  My wrist still hurts.  

Also, I made the rod with the same balance point and reel placement (17 inches from the butt) that I would for a bait caster and didn't consider the hand would be three inches farther from the butt cap with a spinning reel. So I kept accidentally banging the butt on the side of the canoe... probably alerting the fish.  

After about an hour of casting, the bail trip lever started sticking and had to be pushed into place by hand every time the bail was opened.  I knew it was a little sketchy because the screw that the lever pivots on had wallowed out the hole so the lever could, and did, shift out of place.  

Then after a couple of hours of casting the handle fell off in my hand.  The pin that holds the handle to the gear shaft had worked itself loose.  I had peened the pin to make what I thought was a snug fit but it wasn't snug enough.  Luckily, the pin was still stuck in the handle and it could be pushed back in place.  The thing kept working itself loose though and had to be pushed back in several times before the handle fell off again so that was a big distraction too.  

But despite all, I hooked a modest oio.  It was about nineteen inches without much girth or power.  The reel worked great with a fish on.  The drag was smooth and nothing broke.  

The photo is not very good.  The reel was accidentally dunked trying hold the lip grabber and rod in one hand while taking a picture with the other hand so I gave up, released the fish and paddled home.

 Then, somewhere between the beach and the house the handle fell off again.  It was dark by then but I'll probably be able to find it tomorrow.  

Man, I'm glad that's over.  I think I'll service the reel to get the salt off and put it on the shelf.
-steve