First Aluminium Hardy Perfect Mock Up

Introduction

My Suitcase full of vintage Hardy reels and spare parts I bought from Main Hudson several years ago. Main had decided it was time for him to retire from restoring reels and call it a day. There were a lot of completed reels in the deal and many others that needed some attention. I sorted everything out making places for the finished reels, the ones that needed attention and the spare parts

Stage 1

I found this 4 inch very narrow drum reel and associated parts in the bundle I had bought and set about putting it back together. The front flange was missing so I made one that I guessed would look correct for the reel. After I had finished the re-build I sold it to a collector describing it as the first Aluminium prototype Hardy Perfect. My description was wrong, we all make mistakes, and if I had known better at the time I would have given it the description as “A mock-up reel”

Stage 2

Replacement bronze pillars and screws. The original ones had been cut through to remove the front flange which was originally a brass ring with a small diameter which stopped the spool from being removed from the frame. This information came to me after I had completed the rebuild.

Stage 3

I made a nice replacement centre screw

Stage 4

The foot is similar to the Silex design

Stage 5

The little “S” shaped spring pressing down on the top of the pawl had lost its tension so I removed it and bent it to ensure there was the correct amount of pressure on the pawl. What was interesting was the fact that this spring was originally held in place by an aluminium rivet and I replaced this with a correct size BA screw

Stage 6

The bearing bush is screwed into the frame but has no retaining screws to keep it in place

Stage 7

The following is an appraisal from Hardy’s

Thank you for sending me the pictures of your Perfect Reel.
It certainly is an interesting, possibly unique reel. I have not seen another with these proportions & construction.
I have spent a long time looking at the pictures and considering my reply to you.
It is a very narrow reel for being 4” in Diameter , this, along with the following observations:

  1. Early check style incorporating tongue strap spring as well as the normal caliper spring
  2. Large diameter brass spindle end protruding through the winding plate
  3. Brass frame bush not pinned but ‘peened’ into place
  4. Brass or nickel side pillars
  5. Silex style of reel foot
  6. Solid face on the front of the spool with protruding brass centre bush.
This leads me to believe this could be either 1 of 2 options:

  1. An experimental version around the time Hardy’s were trying out aluminium type alloy to replace the heavy brass parts. I believe the first experiments with aluminium were carried out around 1894 , but the winding plate construction was still all brass at this time
As you probably know, the contracted perfects were launched for the 1896 season, but only went up to a 3 7/8” diameter at that time with a choice of either a brass or aluminium winding plate. So if it is a ‘sizing’ experimental type reel , I believe it was made around 1885 / 1896 time

  1. A production contracted perfect from around 1898 that originally had the wide ventilated pillars and large spool hole design in the front face
These early contracted perfect design reels were prone to breakage around the pillars and also around the large spool ventilation holes when line was tightly wound on so maybe this was upgraded / repaired by hardy due to the faulty design of this early style aluminium reels (see J. Drewett’s book page 143 fig 105 for example). The top rim in the example looks identical to the top rim on your reel

After much deliberation I am inclined to conclude that due to the lack of any pins in the brass frame bush & no ventilation holes in the front spool face, this is option 1, –  a prototype / sample reel not intended to be used on a continuous basis for fishing , but purely to obtain Sizes, production techniques etc.. made around 1895 / 1896 era.

Either way it is a very rare & interesting very early aluminium Hardy reel & I thank you for sending the photographs to enable to give my opinion & thoughts on it