Hi all,
Here's a cracker old 'Tatler' workhorse by Grice and Young (Christchurch, England) from the late 1940s/early '50s (as far as I'm aware).
They remind me of old steam engines - 'Flying Scotsman'-style.
Full cast-alloy frame, with a bakelite spool.
I've collected five to date and reckon they're a great example of considered design, well-executed.
There are no ball bearings, just Jigmaster-style bushings - though I believe this pre-dates the first 500 (ie circa 1958) by quite some years.
Freespool is great, despite the bakelite spool being
very slightly warped.
You can see here the stainless/brass clicker mechanism - well thought-out, yet simple...
After 60-odd years of use, there's no evident wear and the long spring still has plenty of torsion.
A standard bridge, eccentric and yoke set-up, but the pinion has the opposite male/female junction to Penn etc.
Both the main gear and pinion are S/S.
Even the spacer spring between the handle and star is S/S and nicely cut.
The star drag is really nicely made, too.
Here's the anti-reverse mechanism - lovely. Double S/S dogs, working on an 'alternating click' like Sal's 114H upgrade (
http://alantani.com/index.php?topic=3077.msg22269#msg22269).
It's a bit hard to see due to the flash, but the dogs engage one at a time.
The dog springs are an excellent design.
The ratchet is a stainless 'ring' gear which slots in over a smaller brass ratchet.
Nice alloy side plates make it a pretty robust frame.
Also, another view of the clicker mechanism.
All I've done here is replace the fibre washer under the main gear with an HT-100 from a Penn 320.
At some stage, I'll measure up the drag stack and replace the lot with CF, but will need to cut some new S/S washers as the current set-up is 3+1 and will need to be 5+1 to fit properly.
And that's that (for now)...
Hope it was of some interest.
All the best, Justin
