# Vintage Pflueger Akron No. 1893 cleanup



## FireEater (Jul 31, 2009)

This is my Fire Department Captain's reel. He recently found it in his Parents garage and it used to be his late Fathers. It was still in original pouch, but you can see it had a lot of use anyway. We estimate it to be about late 1940's to early '50's based upon the time his Father would have used it.

He asked if I would clean it up so he could display it at his house.

Here is the pouch, pretty rough shape, but is still neat.









Some before pics before I tore it down.



























The jewels are pretty neat and cleaned up real good. 


















Started to open it up.



























Here is the extra Pawl that comes with them.


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## FireEater (Jul 31, 2009)

Not really sure what this brass piece does. Once out, nothing else comes apart as the "bearing" is built onto the plate as far as I could tell. Looking up above at the plate when I first took off, you can see on the inside that the "bearing" looks to be riveted onto the plate.


















Worm Gear assembly









The spare Pawl is on top. Only difference I can see is the head of it is more beveled compared to the Pawl already installed.









Pulled the gears off









Side view with red jewel, which is neat. If this was mine to display, I would be tempted to install small LED's inside it to light each jewel up. 









Skeleton housing with spool









Secondary side plate being pulled off









Drag setup


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## FireEater (Jul 31, 2009)

The actually drag looks to be a piece of hardwood or a type of composite material.









Removed both pieces, but the wire is riveted down on one end.









Hole in spool for string.









Clicker Gear









Pinion Gear









All cross pieces come off, leaving just the side plate.









Clicker assembly









All parts cleaned and ready to go back together.









A lot of scratches on it from some hard fishing. But it cleaned up real nice for display.


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## FireEater (Jul 31, 2009)

Used an old advertisement for a back drop to the reel. 









Now a video of it free spinning which surprised me. I have read about them being to tight to cast and mainly used for drop fishing, but this video shows different and with a little cleaning I bet it can cast pretty good.


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## fishingcacher (Mar 29, 2008)

Really nice work.


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## george.maness86 (May 29, 2012)

Nice job


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## ClearLakeClayt (Aug 2, 2011)

Beautiful job! How did you clean the reel body? I've got an old Shakespeare Model FE that looks a lot like yours before you started...


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## rjc1982 (Sep 27, 2005)

Dude that is awesome, thanks for sharing. Slap some dacron on it, tie on a Bingo and have a blast. Joe Dogget wrote several articles in the Houston Chronicle about fishing with vintage reels that he collected over the years. I may have to try and find one for myself now.


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## FireEater (Jul 31, 2009)

ClearLakeClayt said:


> Beautiful job! How did you clean the reel body? I've got an old Shakespeare Model FE that looks a lot like yours before you started...


I initially clean everything with Acetone to cut the gunk. Then use the White Diamond Polish in the bottle.

Sent from my iPhone 6 using TapaTalk 2014.


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## ClearLakeClayt (Aug 2, 2011)

FireEater said:


> I initially clean everything with Acetone to cut the gunk. Then use the White Diamond Polish in the bottle.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone 6 using TapaTalk 2014.


Thanks. iPhone 6? I thought we were on iPhone 5...


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## Drundel (Feb 6, 2006)

Very cool man. I wish I had some stuff from my grandfather. He liked the old Mitchells.


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## ComeFrom? (May 21, 2004)

It's amazing you could get it apart in the first place. What did you use to polish it or did I miss something? Whoops...I did! LOL! Great find! CF?


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