Penn 130 Refurbish

[Rothmar2]

Hi All,

Thought I would share this refurbish of a Penn International 130 I recently did for a client. Its serial No. MM0882 I'm guessing puts its year of manufacture in the early 1980's? This reel was missing its entire ratchet assembly, and the owner was considering putting it out to pasture. On first inspection, it obviously had some stories to tell....





Getting into the internals, there was nothing majorly wrong with it. Being a single speed, its a relatively simple reel mechanically. The gears and drag cam housings, and drag plates were all still very sound. The drags had been upgraded at some point, as they were HT 100's. I believe these would have been fitted with the old asbestos drags from original (?). However cosmetically, it needed a lift. The bridge plates were corroded





Another issue was the outer bridge plate with the preset dial was cracked, and the crack was beginning to work its was across this piece to the point it was flexing, and would eventually break. You may be able to see it working across the screw hole below



It would also need a new set of bearings, as most were rough. The bellevilles only had minor surface rust, thankfully with no pitting, so they could be re-used.



I said to the owner to let me have some time to see if it was feasible to try and restore it back into working condition.

The bearings were not a problem, and could be sourced within Australia. The ratchet assembly and bridge plates were a different matter. Mystic 's still carry most of the parts needed except for the outer preset plate. A bit of a look around on the web, and the only place I could source an original plate from, wanted over $100USD for the one part alone! I decided that seeing as my current job allowed me access to a decent lathe, I would take on making this piece myself from a piece of 5mm 316SS plate I had leftover from the Senator and jigmaster projects. Tom Hryniuk was kind enough to act as a go between for obtaining the parts required from Mystic's. So it seemed a new lease on life was possible for this old beast.

Here's how I went about making the preset plate...

First up was to transfer punch the hole patterns onto the 5mm plate. A punch had to be skimmed and a couple of delrin inserts were spun up to make sure the punch located perfectly the centres of the crank and preset dial openings. I didn't take any detailed pix of this part unfortunately, other than when I  drilled the holes on the drill press. Note the M4 bolts used to bolt the original plate to the stainless blank.



The next step was to skim the landing for the copper C-clip for the preset dial retainer and widen out the crank opening. Having a 4 jaw chuck for the lathe meant the plate could be repositioned fairly quickly, and holes could be centered using the dead centre in the tailstock. The chuck was large enough to accommodate all the moving around, so negated the use of a faceplate. In the below photo you can see I have skimmed the C-clip landing with the boring bar, and have a 22mm drill centered to drill out the crank opening



There is a recess that also need to be machined on the same side a the present dial C-clip recess to provide clearance for the outer crank bearing, as when the bearing is seated in the outer bridge plate it protrudes a little. This recess was machined about 1mm deep, and slightly oversized in diametre for the OD of the bearing. The recess of the preset dial is only about 0.4mm deep, to just enough to keep the copper C-clip in position.

Once these were done, the plate was reversed in the chuck to skim out the clearance for the preset dial, and to bring the plate thickness for it to the correct dimension to allow it to match the groove on the dial shaft to allow fitting of the C-clip and keep the assembly in place.



Skimmed out with the boring bar



Pretty sure in this pic, I have skimmed away the rest of the plate, ready to trim off the excess material outside the of the plate diameter to allow for clamping in the 4-jaw chuck.



I was informed from home, that the parts from the USA had arrived (Many thanks Tom and Mystic), so this meant a slightly easier process to finish this plate off. Knowing I had all new anodised bridge plates, meant I could used the corroded plate as a mount for trimming the plate down to final diameter, by mounting it on a 3-jaw chuck. Chucks were swapped off the lathe, 316 plate bolted to the corroded bridge piece, and trimmed off the excess material corners with the angle grinder, before mounting back on the lathe.





Trimming in progress....



And done



Apart from a bit of de-burring, the rest was to be finished at home.
Parts ready and waiting for final fitment. If you look closely, you can see how far the crack had progressed through the original outer plate.



Began the polishing process mounting the new plate on the mini-lathe at home



Started off with 200 grit wet and dry, and moved up through the grades to 1000 grit. Also ran the lathe in forward and reverse to make the smoothing off of the preset dial recess consistent on the edges.
Once happy with the finish off the mini-lathe, it was onto the calico buffs and 3 phases of polishing grades



Pretty happy with the result against the original piece



And then back into putting it all back together...



At this point it was all about packing the bearings properly, getting plenty of grease into and under the bridge pieces to prevent the onset of corrosion on the new anodised plates, the full screw hole service etc. etc. as per the site mantra. Some shimming was required around the left end of the shaft to get some reasonable drag progression with the lever. I'm not entirely happy with it, but am going to see how the owner feels about that after some use, and we can re-visit at a later stage. Fitted in the new ratchet assembly, and give it a some adjustment, till happy.

And here it is, all pretty'd up, and hopefully ready for much more work.

[Crow]

Very nice work !!

[mo65]

   Wow...that's some great work. Very impressive!

[Ron Jones]

Rothmar takes the phrase "whatever it takes" to a whole new level!

The Man

[Bill B]

Rothmar takes the phrase "whatever it takes" to a whole new level!

The Man

Maybe we can change it to "whatever I can make:..

Good job as always brother......Bill

[Cortez_Conversions]

Outstanding!

[redsetta]

Fantastic work Chris - as always.
Also impressive that you have a lathe at work and one at home too!
Thanks for sharing.
Looking forward to a report on the field testing!
Cheers, Justin

[Rothmar2]

Thanks for the kind words guys.

Bill B, you are right, I do think to myself "I can make that" when it comes to certain parts, that are not too much of a technical marvel to re-create. I do have my limits though.

I didn't mention either that this reel had been handed down from the owners father, so there was extra motivation to make it happen. It had family significance to someone, and I can certainly respect and appreciate that. Couple that with its an albeit minuscule finger up to today's throw-away society mentality, that also drove me to get an outcome.
But I'm very indebted to Mystics and to Tom. This was no-where near possible without their help.

This reel will be put to use with a semi-pro fisherman who has a little quota for bluefin tuna, and prefers to use rod and reel, over longline and hundreds of hooks. He enjoys the thrill of the chase, and that's also something I can get behind. If I get some pix from him with the reel at work, I will add to this thread in the future.

[oldmanjoe]

  That is some nice machine work , knowing  what it takes to do the offset chucking , you nailed it

[thorhammer]

Great save, brother!

[mhc]

Great job Chris, that old warhorse should be good for another 40 years.
Thanks for sharing how you made the preset plate - it's always inspiring to see your work.

Mike

[Dominick]

Chris was the first person to use the Tank.  He made the Stainless steel rings for it.  The man can make anything.  Dominick

[Tightlines667]

Wow!
Exceptionally impressive work as usual.

Thanks for sharing!

John

[Brewcrafter]

Wow!  Just Wow! - john

[ReelFishingProblems]

Impressive craftsmanship