About Me

I am a time-served fully indentured toolmaker who was involved in precision engineering and senior management for 48 years before I retired. A gradual evolvement into the repair and restoration of vintage fishing reels became a passion for me over the last 30 years, culminating in designing and the manufacturing of my own Salmon Spey Reel.

The knowledge and my love of working with these very special items and my accumulated understanding of the engineering heritage and its progression from the 1850s until now has given me a deep appreciation into the design, construction and materials associated with the manufacture of some very rare and valuable fishing reels.

It had always been an ambition of mine to create a reel for today’s market using modern technical materials for weight reduction, strength and wearability while retaining the good old British heritage of design and manufacturing. It took me three years to achieved my ambition of developing and field testing the “Mackenzie Salmon Spey Reel”. The reel is named for an area where I was born “Speyside” near Inverness – a place where my passion for fishing was implanted in me by my father.

I hand made 20 Spey reels and all of these have gone to good homes and the feedback I have had from the new owners has been very positive. It is unlikely I will be making any more reels due to Father Time catching up with me, however I will carry on restoring reels for as long as I am able, a service I am still very happy to offer.

After some thought, it’s time I shared my hints, tricks and secrets on how I go about restoring reels. You will find these as “descriptors” under individual photographs on my projects page. Only one caveat will apply to the above and that is I will not disclose the Hardy acid etch/bronzing/black leading formula or how it is used. This is still regarded as a Hardy trade secret and is in my care with written permission from Hardy’s.

A final message must go to several other people who have helped me in the past with restoration work, but a massive shout out must go to Charlie Norris and Main Hudson (Hardy employees) who have both guided me for many years and shared their trade secrets along with some amazing stories.

Thank you all for taking the time to read this – Kindest regards – John