1950 Swiss Staro 4758 spin reel/ strip, repaint, restore/ Completed!

[Woodbilly]

Hey guys!

Another unique Swiss reel on the bench!

This time 'round its a Swiss made 1950 Staro 4758 spin reel with interchangeable fliers and spools.
It came with both, the larger 58 flier and smaller 47 flier.

It is a fixed spool reel and the drag is operated via a rotatable collar and drag washer stack attached to the body, so that the flier rotates to adjust the drag instead of the spool. Zero line twist. Pretty cool.

I got this one cheap and stateside, so I'm only in it for $30 USD. It is in decent shape and is fully intact, but no box, spool adjustment tool, or manual. No biggie, as I'm using it, not displaying it.


It is a early model with a low fab no.of 21654 and the solid Bakelite spools vs. the later metal rimmed style. Also, the early style ceramic line roller vs. the solid metal style on the later fliers.

The bail trips ok on both fliers, but not like I prefer.
It looks like the spring side of the bail arm is sealed and non serviceable. The cover is held with rivets that cannot be removed.
I'm hoping other side of bail can be taken loose and bail arm be rotated in order to add more pre load to the spring action.
We'll see.

The reel is sluggish and stiff, and I'm sure, full of old nasty grease.

Reel is fully intact and fliers interchange and lock in perfectly.

The spools are unique, as they have a line lay adjustment, on the underside of spool. Originally came with a small tool, but not needed, if yours is missing.

To adjust, on underside of spool, first using a jewelers screwdriver, push the tiny holding pin downward using the visible notch on the pin.
This will allow one to rotate the spool bushing to the choice of line lay, using a larger screwdriver in the provided slot.
Once set where you prefer, push pin upward to lock in place, to the type of line lay preferred per spool illustration.
Never saw this before. Neat little option.

The original finish is used on the body and fliers.
Since I got this one cheap, I'm going to strip finish and repaint in a olive drab green.

I've never worked on one and there is little to go on from the web. I've been there before, on other reels, so no issue for me. I'll figure it out.

I'm, of course, going to document the entire process from start to finish, for myself and any one else, who may need the strip info.

Firstly, starting with the flier bail arm parts strip and then onto drag set up and then internals.

Stay tuned!!

[MACflyer]

Pretty neat reel! Looking forward to seeing the overhaul.

[oldmanjoe]

   Another interesting reel .   Looking forward to see this rebuild . 

[Midway Tommy]

Good deal. Looking forward to seeing your discoveries & lesson. 👍

I've got 3 or 4 packed away in a tote & also one (a P11) in the original box with the manual, parts sheet/list & tool. Haven't gotten around to tearing into any of them yet so this will be a nice go to when I end up tackling them. 😃

[Woodbilly]

Got everything stripped down and it all went smoothly even without instructions.

Bail arm was pretty straightforward and disassembled easily.

Remove side oil port from body. Handle oil port is pressed in and could not remove. I'll clean with steel pin and solvent.

The drag set was the most tedious of the job, just because I was going at it blind.

Starting with removing the triangle holding ring and thin metal washer on drag assembly.

Next, pull the stainless cover cap to expose the inner sleeve.
It just sets in place, so it just pops out using tweezers or a screwdriver.

There is a small threaded stud on the side of the drag assembly. This has to be unthreaded to allow the knurled cover cap to be removed, to access drag washer stack.

To do this, there is a tiny cog wheel on the threaded stud. Using a jewelers screwdriver, rotate the cog, to draw the threaded stud upward and out of the range of the holding notches on the plastic drag stack cover.

Once the stud is cleared, the knurled cover can be rotated, exposing the inner drag stack. To do this rotate the cover to line up the notches on the outer edge of cover with the 3 tabbed holding points on the cast body.

The cover can then be lifted off the drag assembly and the inner drag cup washer can be pulled.

This metal washer is channeled to hold the drag washers, which consist of one metal detent washer between two thread impregnated cloth washers.

After these are removed, the studded spring washer can be removed from the flier. It just pulls out easily, as it just nests on the flier via holding studs inserted in openings cast on flier body.

This completes this side of the drag assembly.

Now, onto the backside, containing the drag adjustment collar.

Looking at the 3 tab locking bushing, one can see a flat pressure spring.
This spring must be removed in order to rotate the tabbed lock bushing.
Using a jewelers screwdriver, gently pry up on the flat spring, exposing a small hole in the spring face. Place screwdriver there and pry upward, thus removing spring.

Then, the plastic collar can be rotated, aligning the tabs with cutouts on the metal cover plate.
Once these line up, the metal cover will pop out. It has a small ring spring underneath, that keeps the upward pressure on the metal cover when it is tabbed into place.

I left the flier removal push knob and spring in place, as it has tabs holding it in place. These tabs are cast into the housing and are fragile. I didn't want to risk breaking one trying to remove the wire spring. I am going to tape the exposed knob when painting.

This will complete the drag assembly strip.

Rotate handle backwards, to unthread it from post.
This will expose a set screw. Remove it and butt cap will free up, to be removed.
After cap is pulled, the handle can be threaded off of the post.
This will leave the threaded end that is pressed onto ring gear shaft.
Insert Allen wrench into set screw holes in threaded end and twist and pull firmly, to remove threaded end.

Remove side plate to access internals. The side plate has a c-clip holding the screw on.

Next proceed to remove 2 screws at butt end of reel body.
This will free up the triangle bracket holding the non rotating
shaft.
Remove the bracket and non rotating shaft and then pull the pinion gear and a/r pawl mechanism out from body shell.

The pinion gear block has a small dust cover held with a ring. I left it in place, as the retaining ring is tiny and looks tedious to reinstall.
The a/r pawl is tiny and the spring that loads it, is also tiny.
I left it intact, too.
I'll just clean up to remove decades of grime and grease.

At this point, the ring gear can be removed from body shell.

This leaves all cast parts ready for stripping and primer/ paint.

All small bits and brightwork are getting a soak in cleaning solution overnight before reassembly.

Slowly getting there!!

[Donnyboat]

Thanks for posting this very interesting, amaising how many parts for such an old  reel, cheers Don.

[Woodbilly]

Thanks for posting this very interesting, amaising how many parts for such an old  reel, cheers Don.

Yes. Lots of goodies in there. Not for the faint of heart. A fun learning experience, for sure!

[Woodbilly]

 Updates!

Got all body parts stripped of finish and ready for repaint.

 The body shell has an Argent gray finish underneath the original color.
 I could not remove this. I don't know if it is acid dipped or what.
 Either way, it gave me tape line for reel stem.

 I painted flier and body shell drab green and left side plate cover and drag assembly bare metal.

 I just liked the look of the bare metal parts for contrast.

Cleaned and polished all small bits and brightwork.

Funny thing I discovered on the oil ports.
 They both had a cloth wick pressed into them. I assume this was to allow for collection of oil in saturated wick for slow release of oil to parts and possibly to keep contamination out.

 I ended up removing these wicks, as they were stiff and prevented the spring loaded trap doors on the oilers from operating correctly.

 No issue with them being removed, as this will allow full oil flow in ports and trap doors to fully depress and retract.

 Well,that sums up the cleaning and repaint chapter for this old girl.

On to reassembly!!

Stay tuned!!

 

[oldmanjoe]

     You do some nice work , that`s a test of patience ..

[Woodbilly]

Updates!

I've been working on getting the flier and drag block assembly all put together.
To say it has been tedious, is putting it lightly.

First thing before any work is done, is to tape the bail arm down. Since the load spring is sealed under the riveted cover, you can't release tension on it, so it must be held out of the way while assembling.

The bail arm catch/trigger assembly, that is mounted on the flier, was quite the chore, as I couldn't take a tear down picture of the trip arm spring set up, because, come to find out, disassembly, trips the load of the spring, before you can actually see how its set in place.

This made figuring out the orientation of spring and how to pre load it, a bit tricky. It took some trial and error, but I got it figured out and took pictures for the next person's help.

First, place spring post stud in cast opening, in flier body.
Now, place the spring on post with the small arm of the spring facing up and the long arm on the bottom.

Now, assemble the bail arm catch/trigger and cover with the long cover screw in place.

While holding this assembly together, set the cover screw so that it is in front of the short spring arm.

Keep downward pressure on the assembly to keep the short spring arm captured behind the cover screw and manuever the assembly, until screw drops into threaded hole in flier.

This will lock the spring arm in behind the tightened cover screw and in turn, load pressure on the longer lower arm, against the trip stud of the trigger.

When bail arm is opened, the small catch on the trigger assembly, catches the bail arm bracket, to hold the bail open.

As the flier rotates, the metal trip nub, that is part of the spool, contacts the bail arm trip post, closing the bail arm and retracting the trip post, so the spool doesn't contact it when retrieving.

A neat little set up I figured out while assembling the drag
The maximum drag tension can be set to a default point, depending on where the drag stack cover is indexed.

The drag stack cover has a set of notches where the cog screw nests.
These notches determine how tightly the drag cover compress the drag washers.

Rotating the cover to the left, towards smaller notches, will allow the full drag pressure ("10" range on indicating dial) and towards the right less drag pressure, ( "1" on indicating dial.

I set this one up closer to the smaller right side notches.
This puts my max drag tension at the range of 1- 8.5 max, on dial.

I have never seen a manual set adjustable default max drag before. Seems overengineered, but I like it! Lol

I included pictures of the spring preload set up, both without cover/ trip arm to show how spring must be installed.

Also included picture of drag default set up.

As always, all moving parts were hit with oil before assembly.

Onto rest of assembly!

Peace!!

[Woodbilly]

Back with final assembly pictures and steps taken to get there.

This Swiss reel was one of the most challenging strips I have ever done.

William Glaser obviously wanted no one to repair their Staro reels at home. Lol

Starting with the ring gear.
It is put in place and since it is Bakelite and large, I applied liberal faucet grease to teeth and backside.

Since I removed the wick from the oil port on the handle bushing, the spring has nothing to keep it from falling into the bushing sleeve cavity when setting the ring gear.

So, I had to use a jewelers screwdriver inserted from the outside of handle bushing and up into bushing sleeve, to depress the spring into the oil port cavity and while inserting the ring gear shaft into sleeve, pull screwdriver out, allowing the spring to be trapped in the oil por by the ring gear shaft, instead of the wick pack.

Not sooo bad, but when you let the spring fall from oil port cavity, not fun to get that dude back into the port hole, down in the sleeve.

Now, onto the a/r & pinion gear shaft assembly.
This part was pretty tricky and micro sized.

Looking at the a/r, pinion block assembly, you'll notice the a/r pawl has a bevel edge.

There is also a channel cut into the pinion gear shaft, right under the gear, itself.

The spring loaded pawl knife edge bites into this channel when back winding, preventing reverse rotation of flier.

The steps for this are, first sleeve one washer onto pinion gear shaft and insert pinion into a/r block assembly.

As gear is about to bottom out, lightly pull spring loaded pawl out of the way, allowing shaft to fully seat into a/r block.

Once pinion is fully seated, release pawl, to let it mate into the grooved channel.

Test a/r by turning pinion gear backwards. If correctly set, the bevel edge of pawl will bite into channel, preventing backing.

Pretty crazy arrangement. No a/r click this way.

Now, non rotating shaft can be inserted into pinion/ a/r block.

Place this entire assembly into the reel body opening, until the metal dust cover nests into body shell opening.

Next place the non rotating shaft end into the hole on the triangle holding bracket and attach the bracket using the two machine screws.

Take the side oil port stud and thread it into place on the body.

When the oil port is fully tightened into body, this acts as a set screw to hold the entire block assembly in place.

To tie the non rotating shaft into the ring gear rotation for the up and down movement of the spool, there is a sleeve on the non rotating shaft end and this sleeve slides in the slot on the triangle bracket.

Inside the sleeve is a pin and the ring gear face has a circular raceway cast into it.

Line the sleeved pin up with the raceway and then using tiny punch or screwdriver,  push the pin downward until it drops into race and is locked in track.

As ring gear rotates, the pin follows the circular race and moves the non rotating shaft up and down.

More crazy engineering!

With that, the drag assembly can now be placed onto the reel body until flush with the dust cover.

Place the large hole washer onto the block assembly shaft and over drag block holding collar.

Now snap triangle ring into place on drag block holding collar and this locks drag block assembly into place.

Next step is place removable flier and spool.

Place index finger on chrome release button and thumb on small tab cast onto  reel body, pinch fingers to release the holding spring. Lining notches on flier with holding points on drag assembly, twist flier until it seats in place and then release knob, locking entire flier down.

More crazy engineering...


Now, set the handle. There is no set screw to hold handle to ring gear shaft on this reel. First I've seen.


First, place handle over handle stem on body, then set threaded end in place on ring gear shaft.
It just pressed on and firmly popped onto shaft end.
I then held ring gear firm from inside and gave the threaded end a couple hard whacks with peen hammer to really lock it down,

After this, still holding the ring gear from the backside, take a punch and punch the shaft end to set the threaded end fully.

Place end cap and set screw to finish the handle attachment.

Thread the spool onto non rotating shaft end.

Give all internals a liberal grease and oil bath, before checking function of bail arm and lateral movement of spool.

Place screw and c-clip onto side cover plate and secure covet plate to body.

This completes the process for assembly of the Staro reel.

A very unique reel. Over engineered? You betcha!
One of the most tedious strips I've ever done, but 100% worth it.

William Glasser... genius!

Peace!

[Woodbilly]

Got around to painting and reassembling  the larger #58 flier.

I painted it a matte black to contrast with the smaller #47 drab green flier.

Assembly was much easier this time since I knew what to do.

I did have to repair the ceramic line roller on this flier, as it had been used more than smaller one, by previous owner, and had busted roller.

Since both halves were fully intact with no chips or missing pieces, I couldn't just toss the pieces away.

A wooden toothpick was the perfect circumference to firmly hold the first half from moving.

I then placed second piece and pressed it down on toothpick.
Aligned the broken halves perfectly and, using hemostat pliers, pinched the toothpick just above the second piece, in turn, firmly pressing the two halves together.

I glued with clear high strength adhesive and am letting dry before mounting on bail.

Also, to add to the strip, I wasn't happy with the way the handle just pressed onto the ring gear shaft.

I felt one big bite or fight, and it eas gonna break loose and free spin, so I drilled and tapped the threaded bushing and trimmed a set screw to hold the bushing firmly onto shaft.

I don't know if the bushing was heated, put on shaft, and allowed to cool, at the factory, but I had never seen a handle pressed on only.

When I stripped it, originally, it was very firmly pressed and sealed onto the gear shaft.
It took some twisting and pulling to pop it free.

I could never get it to bite as firmly as it was when I stripped it.

Didn't like it, so I changed it. Lol

Peace!!

[Woodbilly]

YouTube video of reel

https://youtube.com/shorts/F0GukjrLVs8?si=DVKCChd0sap59KpR

[Woodbilly]

Hey guys,

Just a quick little add on to this thread with a few pictures of my newest resto-mod 1950 Staro, to pair with my recently restored Staro.

 Total strip and repaint in a Dam color scheme. I went with a black body, so my larger no.58 flier would pair with both reels, as I painted it black, as well.

This one was rough, and my first one i redone in a similar to factory color scheme, so I wanted to go all out on this one.

Really superb little reels and built very well.  I have yet to take one out crappie fishing,  but am planning to next trip.

Purists please don't hate me, but I love what I do and these reels are seeing use after many decades of sitting and or neglect, so I feel I'm still doing them a service, regardless of paint color.

Peace!!

[foakes]

Excellent work!

No one will hate you for bringing these old vintage reels back for another 10 rounds.

And if they do —- just tell them to stay in their lane.

The problem could come in if you were representing these as original —- which, of course, you are not.  They are actually better than original.

Again, excellent skillful work and explantations.

Best, Fred