The Montague rod originally had gold wrapping thread on the lower sections. However, closer to the top I’m not sure cause the varnish turned it tan. Ron
WD-40
In 1953, a fledgling company called Rocket Chemical Company and its staff of three set out to create a line of rust-prevention solvents and degreasers for use in the aerospace industry, in a small lab in San Diego, California.
It took them 40 attempts to get the water displacing formula worked out. But they must have been really good, because the original secret formula for WD-40?which stands for Water Displacement perfected on the 40th try?is still in use today.
Convair, an aerospace contractor, first used WD-40 to protect the outer skin of the Atlas Missile from rust and corrosion. The product actually worked so well that several employees snuck some WD-40 cans out of the plant to use at home.
A few years following WD-40’s first industrial use, Rocket Chemical Company founder Norm Larsen experimented with putting WD-40 into aerosol cans, reasoning that consumers might find a use for the product at home as some of the employees had. The product made its first appearance on store shelves in San Diego in 1958.
In 1960 the company nearly doubled in size, growing to seven people, who sold an average of 45 cases per day from the trunk of their cars to hardware and sporting goods stores in the San Diego area. The rest is history.
I have heard all the talk about WD40 but to me it’s kinda like Duct Tap…you use it when the going gets tough and its the thing that just happens to be handy (and cheap). The WD40 was applied to the old auto reel over 10 years ago and the reel still works fine. It did a good job cleaning it out (after about two applications of WD40 I gave it a bath in warm soapy dish water and then reapplied the WD40. I can’t notice any harm to the reel or the line. A lot of things that go round and round usually need more of a cleaning than a lubrication. If it is good enough for the skin of an atlas missle, it has to be good enough for an old fly reel. IMO it is better than the rust bucket it was when I came across it. I don’t use the stuff on my guns, they get Rem-Lube (by Remington) For fly reels I use Zebco Red grease.
ok so now that i know way more than i need to about wd40, i have another question. Do you put backing on auto reels? i removed the old line and there was no backing, so i was wondering.
THanks all
We are merely here to help and enlighten you. Backing is used for a couple of things. One, if the flyline is played out on a fish, you need something to continue on out to help play the fish in. Two, to get the line up near the edge of the spool so you can cast easier without having to pull small lenghts from the arbor. To decide if and how much backing you can use on your reel, take the line completly off or with new line reel it on first (no backing). After reeling it on, you now can see how much room you have on the spool for backing. Attach backing to the flyline, reel it in to about 1/8 to 1/4 to the top of the spool. Now all you have to do is take this off and do the step in reverse and WoLa, you have a nice balanced setup that should cast and store your line properly. Good luck, Jonezee
thanks Jonezee
Some thing that seldom gets mentioned… is that when you are deciding how much to put on your reel you are deciding under ideal conditions. …tension, etc. …but when you are fishing the line doesn’t go on the reel a perfectly…so give yourself a little extra space…it will not make a significant difference.