• November Specials
• Reelsmithing Workshops
• Tip #11 - Engine Turning Reel Components
• Reelflections - A John Betts Reel

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November Specials
Our Materials Package and "The Reelsmith Primer" and Materials Package combo are 25% off this Month!

November is a great time to make a reel for yourself, spouse, child, grandchild or friend! Our Materials Package makes it easy, all of the hardware and materials you need plus a set of drawings and templates. These packages are designed to accompany our book, The Reelsmith's Primer, but an enterprising reelsmith can use them to get off to a great start. There are no coupons, the 25% discount has already been applied in our store. 

All orders will include one of our new Nipper Zingers as a bonus.

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Our tip this month describes a technique to add an eye-catching decorative touch to your aluminum or brass reels. The technique is called “engine turning” or “jeweling” and has been used for several centuries to add a decorative element to metal surfaces. A famous example of engine turning is the engine cowl on Charles Lindburgh’s Spirit of St. Louis (see Figure 1). The technique can be applied quite effectively to brass and aluminum fly reels. Figure 2 is a jeweled reel made by my friend Wayne Caron. Wayne first introduced me to engine turning a few years ago.
 

Figure 1 – Spirit of St. Louis
(photo in public domain)


Figure 2 – Wayne Caron’s Engine Turned Reel
(photo used with permission)

Tip #11 – Engine Turning (aka Jeweling) Reel parts
Engine turning is complicated looking but surprisingly easy to create and it doesn’t require a lot of special tooling. The technique creates a highly ornamental swirled pattern produced by lightly touching the metal surface with a spinning a brush (or other abrasive element) in a drill press. The part is then shifted slightly (usually about ½ the diameter of the swirl pattern) and another swirl applied. Continuing this produces a fish scale like series of swirls.

There is lots of information on the Web about engine turning and jeweling with some beautiful examples. However, almost all of the information I found applied a linear pattern. Since reels are round, I wanted to develop a process for applying a concentric pattern of swirls and that is what I’ll describe.

We’ve also prepared a short video to accompany this tip! You can find it on our YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/user/TheEclecticAngler.

Engine Turning Tools
As mentioned above, the only tools required are a drill press and a spinning abrasive, typically a brush. Nylon, brass and stainless steel bristled brushes are commonly used and create different effects based on the stiffness of the bristle. Common pencil erasers and other abrasive rubber rods can also be used. With both types of tools, the effect can be enhanced by using an abrasive suspended in light oil. Pumice and silicon carbide are common and work well.

Although it is possible to apply the pattern with a handheld electric or even hand cranked drill, a drill press gives more control and more uniformity to the pattern. A simple drill press attachment for a common hand drill is perfect for this technique.

I like to use stainless steel bristled brushes (Figure 3) on both aluminum and brass. The smaller the diameter of the brush, the smaller the pattern it creates. On small items like fishing reels, smaller patterns are more eye-catching than larger swirls. The brush can also mushroom as it is pressed against the metal, increasing the diameter of the swirl. I’ll discuss how to control that a little later.
 

Figure 3 - Stainless Steel Brush

I like the 3/16” diameter stainless steel brushes offered by Brownells for engine turning guns. Dremel makes suitable 3/16” diameter brushes with nylon (#405), brass (#537), and stainless steel (#532). I’ve read that normal carbon steel brushes can leave particles embedded in aluminum that will rust. The brushes are inexpensive so it is best to avoid that potential problem by using stainless steel brushes.

You can use the brushes as-is but I find that mushrooming of the bristles results in inconsistent swirl patterns that are usually larger than what I want. So, I prepare my brushes by wrapping the bristles tightly with a layer of masking tape, leaving about 1/8” of bristle exposed. Then, a short length of heat shrink tubing is slid over the masking tape and shrunk. I usually use 2 layers of heat shrink to give a very rigid brush that maintains a consistent and small diameter. Figure 4 shows the wrapped brush.
 

Figure 4 - Wrapped Steel Brush

To get an even, concentric pattern of swirls, I use the simple fixture shown in Figure 5. It is constructed from a 6” x 6” piece of board (plywood, particle or pine) with a ¼” pivot mounted in a ¼” hole in its center. The pivot in my fixture is brass but a ¼” wood dowel rod works fine. The spool plate – with its ¼” center hole – rotates on this pivot to keep the concentric pattern uniform.
 

Figure 5 - Engine Turning Fixture

Engine Turning
Before starting, clean and polish your part. Although engine turning will hide some surface imperfections, a polished surface produces a better result. I sand to 600 grit and polish with Flitz™ metal polish.

(The following description is for a right handed drill press and operator.)

1. I use an X-Y table on my drill press to position the work but simply moving the fixture and clamping to the drill press table works fine. Start by chucking the brush and then positioning the fixture’s pivot directly under the brush. Then, slide the fixture to the left until the bristles will just graze the pivot. Clamp the fixture down or lock your X-Y table. Figure 6 shows the initial setup. With an X-Y table, you simple turn the X handle and remember how far you turned it. You’ll use this X movement for all remaining concentric rings.
2. Now, position the spool plate over the pivot. You can start by engine turning the backside of the rear spool plate for practice. No one will see it! Make sure the spool plate rotates freely on the pivot and ream the plate’s center hole if not. Use a medium to fast spindle speed on your drill press.
3. Hold the spool plate firmly against the table with your left hand and slowly lower the brush using the drill press’ quill until it just touches the surface of the part. Check the swirl pattern to see if you are getting the effect you want. If not, repeat but apply more pressure with the quill. Once I have the pattern I want, I use my quill depth lock to make sure it is repeatable but you can do it by feel also.
4. With the first swirl mark made, rotate the part clockwise until the edge of the brush passes over the middle of the previous swirl – this is ½ of the swirl diameter and gives a pleasing pattern. See Figure 7 for example. The reason for rotating the part clockwise is so you can see the previously applied swirl and can use it to lineup the position of the brush. Apply the new swirl and then repeat Step 4 until you’ve gone almost all the way around the part.
5. At the end of the circular row of swirls, you may need to fudge the swirl overlap a little to get the pattern to line up at the ends, but you don’t need to be too persnickety since it is difficult to see minor variations in the swirl pattern when complete.
6. Once the circular row of swirls is complete, you move the fixture and part ½ a swirl diameter to the left to create the next row. I like to start the next row so the new swirl is in the valley between 2 swirls in the previous row. However, since the diameter of the row increases as you move to the perimeter of the spool plate, each successive row will have a few more swirls than the previous row. Simply do a ½ swirl overlap as you progress around the row and it will turn out all right.
7. Repeat steps 4 through 6 until you have completed engine turning the part, as in Figure 8.

Figure 6 - Initial Setup


Figure 7 - Swirl Pattern Overlap


Figure 8 - Completed Engine Turning
 

Figure 9 - Completed Reel with Engine Turned Spool Plate

Figure 1 - John Betts handcrafted reel


Figure 2 - Description tag attached to reel

Figure 3 - Six pillar construction

Figure 4 - Celtic cross back plate


Figure 5 - Disassembly

Figure 6 - Click plate detail

Figure 7 - Location of click pawls in spool

Figure 8 - Click pawl detail