I rescued my lost rod/reel from last year

[bdorman]

I doubt if any of you remember the story, but last year I lost a rod and reel when I put it down on the pier to take a cellphone call. Within one second it was "whooshed" off the pier by a large mouth bass.

Well, today I found it and performed a rescue operation to retrieve it. It was in six feet of water, which on this lake you can only see down six feet this time of year; within a month you'll see three feet maximum.

I'm sure the reel is toast but that's okay, it was a cheapy underspin. But I'd like to clean up the rod. It's a sweet little 5' ultralight Pflueger. I'll try to bring the reel back to life only because I enjoy doing stuff like that, but it's really not worth it. I figure this will make a good "kid's rig" when my nephews visit.

Any suggestions about the clean-up are appreciated.

[kdlong]

lightly scrub the rod becarefull around the wrapping on the eyes. after you get the rod good and clean take some turtle wax like you use on your car and wax it a couple times to seal it. as for the cork handle just let it dry for a while. it may crack if it doesn't then lightly scrub it and let dry then wax it just like the rod.you will be surprised at the real i fished one out a few years back and thought the reel was toast but i cleaned it up and put oil and grease on the gears and it worked like new. gave it to my niece last year to fish with she loves it.

[irish1]

If you need to clean the cork use Go-Jo type hand cleaner.

[feeshrman]

i remember your original post. This is a neat story let us know how the restore goes

[jimp]

what does the wax do to the cork, wouldn't the wax make the cork slick??

[kdlong]

it will seal it where water can't penatrate or soak in. it may be slick for the fist couple times but usaully doesn't last long. i seal mine every year before fishing season starts and they have lasted me for a long time over the ones i don't seal.i learned this when i use to bass fish tournaments alot. i would wear a cork handle out in a couple seasons. i was at one tournament and an older guy was standing by my boat and saw my rods he told me about waxing the rods and handles. he showed me some of his that were atleast 10 years old and had very little wear. been doing it ever since.

[SirBob]

I caught someones rod and reel 3 years ago that looked like it was in the lake a year. For the reel (open face) I took the line off and soaked the reel in kerosene for a few days, took it out and blowed it off with an air hose. Then lubed it up and oiled it. Surprising it worked ok. I gave it to a friends kid and he is still fishing with it.

[Blackhawk19]

Glad you found it, post the after clean up pic with the before pic when your thru with it. I would like to see the results.

[bdorman]

Before:



Bringing the reel back to life was easier than I thought. There are only 5 pieces: the body, the gear-spool-drag mechanism is all one piece, the crank and crank pin screw and the spool cover. After disassembling I flushed it thoroughly with water; then cleaned out all the old grease. After re-greasing and oiling, the mechanism was fine.

It turned out that the body is make of plastic covered with a metallic-looking paint. As you can see in the "before" photo, the paint had bubbled. I peeled/scrapped it all off and plan to just leave the body black. The best way to clean the metal parts was using Goo Gone and a plastic scrub pad (like a steel wool pad, but plastic). While doing all this, I must have thought 20 times..."and this reel landed 18" bass and 24" northern pike!"



I hope I haven't ruined the rod. When I started cleaning it the scum was peeling off. After about 5" of cleaned rod I realized that I was peeling off a coating of the rod. I stopped peeling and finishing cleaning it with the plastic-wool pad (which worked fine; I wish I'd started with it). I assume the coating is some type of protectorant used on graphic rods. I'll put on multiple layers of wax as recommended earlier. Or, do you think I need to epoxy coat those five inches?

The grain of the cork is raised (just like wet wood grain gets raised) so I plan to knock it down with 220-grit sandpaper and wax it too (thanks for the wax recommendation!). There aren't any cracks in the cork and it's about 95% dry at this point so I'm not expecting any.



The good news is that the reel came out so well that I don't think I'll replace it. Too bad, those Pflueger Trion 10-series reels are only $30, but I think the underspin reel will be easier for my non-experienced guests.

Thanks again for all the recommendations and encouragement.

[kdlong]

its actually not epoxy.they make a sealer they put on the rods before they are wrapped.you can order it online but no more then came off your rod i would just wax it .i would put several coats on the place where the coating came off. i build custom surf rods as a hobbie. i have learned alot about preping rod blanks to be tied. can't wait till i can start building custom crappie rods this summer.