110 -450 yard Long key

[oldmanjoe]

I found a Ocean city Long Key that did not look to bad .   It is missing a knob and knob stem .

I can make one and make a nice little project for a late night in the man cave .

Well when I started to take it apart for a general cleaning , than came the surprise .    The side plate screws were not original  .   Out of 14 screws only 3 were correct .      Original are 6- 40 thread .138 diameter with a unique long head on it, what the replacement were are 8 - 32 thread .164 diameter .         Now when you are going to  re tap a hole for the next size ,you should re drill the hole before trying to tap it other wise you are going to make a hot mess .   Chip are going to tear out and the tap is not going to go in straight .
4 of the 8 bars are junk now .     The other 4 bars are screwed in with the rings behind the side plates .they were alright

  The reel seat is tapped 8 – 32 and is holding the screw even thou it is only .090 thick .    I can make 6 screws just for the seat with the correct head on the screw .    Or I can make a whole different custom seat with a little more length and stiffness to it .       Still dreaming on this idea .         Well I am going into my cave now and start making parts .

[thorhammer]

Yes! Keep pics going on this one...

[Donnyboat]

very interesting project, please take us along as you proceed, cheers Don.

[oldmanjoe]

 One of the things that I did check before I tore it down was, is the spool centered and how was the end play for the spool .    When the side plates came off i noticed that the end bearing were not seated on both plates .  About a turn and a half each .  Yes these are adjustable !   This tells me that the spread between plates can be tighten up .

 When i checked the reel seat ,the corners went 2 .253 on one side and 2 .260 on the other side .
 Then i checked the bars for length     They went from 2.250 ,52,54,55,58 and 2.260 .  Well that means that the plates are not parallel to each other , more like a V shape .   The first 4 bars that I made were 2.258 just so i can put the reel together and check tolerances.   I found that i could make the bars at 2.253 and that was my targeted lengths for 11 bars .  I am not giving up on the stock reel seat , I can square it up to 2.253.

 I will post some pictures of bars and screw being made also..     First 3 are the adjustable bearing  than the corner shots of the seat

[oldmanjoe]

    I have my bars and screws made and did a assembly to make sure everything fits .  It`s square and parallel now .     I put 3 bars were the reel seat would sit so i can try a make my own seat .
     
  I had to put in a order for some brass bar stock for the seat , so it will be a while before i can get back to it.     Plus with the Holidays coming up and family coming it maybe after the new year before i get to play with it again .

I may play with the stock seat and put bars in between the stamping like a Ja Coxe seat !!

[mhc]

Good work on the screws & squaring up the posts / frame Joe - the 10 thou variation in the original posts & seat probably isn't too bad for something made with hand tools but I would have thought machined parts should be a bit tighter. How old is the 'Long Key'?

Mike

[oldmanjoe]

Good work on the screws & squaring up the posts / frame Joe - the 10 thou variation in the original posts & seat probably isn't too bad for something made with hand tools but I would have thought machined parts should be a bit tighter. How old is the 'Long Key'?

Mike

It`s a 80 plus year old reel !!    I think the build date were 1932 -1941 for the long key .
    I`ll take .010 , a small burr can be .002 thou .  I just needed a excuse to use the needle files ..

[oldmanjoe]

  I had one of those sleepless nights , so i made the 3 bars and squared up the stock seat .
       And i will post some pictures of some knobs ..