A neighbor of mine gave me some old grimy, nasty looking rods and reels last month. Most of the stuff was junk, but I was able to salvage a nice Daiwa ultra-light spinning reel, and an old A.F. Meiselbach Tripart 580 reel. These reels were made from 1907 to 1923 and were the top selling reels in America during that time. I completely disambelled the reel, cleaned and polished it, lubed the gears (nicely machined heavy duty gears) and reassembled the reel. WOW! It turns smooth as butter, and casts nearly as well as my BPS and Quantum bait cast reels. I'm going fishing in 2 weeks and can't wait to try this great old reel a try. I mounted it on a new Berkley Cherrywood medium action rod and spooled it with 10 pound Stren mono line.
I gave this reel a shot 2 weeks ago. Doesn't cast as well as my modern BPS and Quantum reels, but not bad for a reel @ 100 years old! I decided I'm going to use it as a channel cat reel. I mounted it on a 7' Berkley Cherrywood medium action rod and spooled it with Stren 10 pound test mono. Should be fun catching channels on a reel where the only drag is your thumb pressure!