List of Ambidex Reel Models

[Moley]

Hello St Nobby. Yes been on here a bit, but mostly 'lurking' to get a flavour of the site.

As to your observation with regard to the numbers, for what are on the face of it, different handles being the same?

Well yes, it is not laziness by J W Young but merely the casting number of the handle type. They are the same casting if you look really carefully but with different 'folding' and 'holding' arrangements made from different chrome parts.

Young's were always fiddling with their 'basic' designs, usually to cut costs/corners to remain competitive with their rivals, like Mitchell. The problem with the Ambidex reel is that the design was reasonably complex, take a look inside the casing to ascertain this, and as a consequence all had to be 'hand finished', very often at 'Different Locations', just to compound the indentification troubles. Hence, in part, the seeming infinite variety of the 'standard' model....if such a thing exists?

Perhaps it might be better to say the most common model and leave it at that?

This is possibly contentious but I am assured by some of the reasonably 'compis mentis' remaining Tea Club participants that the different locations for manufacture and finishing of the Ambidex took place at sites, not necessarily in Redditch. This was especially the case with large orders which were 'farmed out' to other manufacturers on a 'quid pro quo' basis. I know for a fact, as I have viewed the invoices, confirmed by anecdotal evidence from the Tea Club, that Reuben Heaton did a lot of work on this basis with All of the Redditch Tackle Companies; not just J W Young!

The problem I seem to have is that the more I find out about the British Tackle Trade, the more I'm beginning to realise just how interconnected they all were and what a 'close knit' community they formed. The more I think about it, the more confusing it all seems. However, I believe it was because of this inter-connectivity between seemingly separate entities that caused the collapse of the British Tackle Industry as a whole!

My evidence for this is only circumstantial and anecdotal, with no hard evidence, as such, but consider this, why did such a seemingly strong, established industry, made up of many different companies, all seem to collapse within a very short time-scale?

All of them had problems or went out of business around 1969/70. World-Wide recession played its part, of that there is no doubt. Cheap Far Eastern Imports also contributed, again no doubt there. But the fact remains they all seemed to collapse in a very short period of time, never to recover. Too reliant on each other?

It makes you think though, doesn't it?

I hope this will stir up some interest and perhaps shed some light on a very interesting conundrum....who knows we might even get to the truth!

Glad to have been of some help to you Old Cod. However, it is Tea time now so I'm off for a bit of cake!

Mole Power!!!

[The Sweetcorn Kid]

....someone mention cake???

[Nobby]

Perhaps they just weren't competing with one another enough?


The British motorcycle industry did much the same. In the light of falling sales and the threat of cheap Japanese imports instead of 'upping their game' they joined together and formed AMC, BSA/Triumph and Norton-Villiers.
Without producing anything much new...and what they did was pretty ruddy awful and unreliable.


Soon only Triumph were left at Meriden just as the Unions got the idea that industry must be saved by the Government by investing tax-payers money. The Government could only afford one British Leyland and it was bye-bye bike manufacturer.


There are Triumphs again, of course, made, I am quite sure, with help from the Japanese, though I can't prove it....but I looked VERY HARD INDEED at the first one and it was near identical in design and many components to a Kawasaki.


With the country embracing fixed spool reels, maybe Youngs should have designed something better than the Amdidex, but I like 'em.


....and at least Youngs got the spool to go around the right way

[Nobby]

I should perhaps add why I have so many Ambidexes.

You see, each time I get one I then get another, of the same model, for spares.

Only, almost without fail the second one proves to be a belter, if a little tatty. Too nice to strip dowm for bits because it fishes too well, perhaps for the reason it is run-in more, it leaves me no choice but to get a third one!


And that's how we lost the dining room.............

[Bjp]

as i have yet to see a pic or one for sale do i take it that mk3's are as rare as rocking horse poo

regards

bjp

[Nobby]

I uploaded some images here:


http://s259.photobucket.com/albums/hh31 ... ng%20Reel/


Not come across a 7 or an 8 yet and I don't know the difference between a 1FP a 2FP or a 3 or a 4.
????

[Kevanf1]

Nobby, that is one very impressive collection. I have to admit that I have never seen let alone tried an Ambidex (or one of the badged models) in the flesh. What are they like to use? How do they compare to such as a Mitchell 300?

[The VFC]

as i have yet to see a pic or one for sale do i take it that mk3's are as rare as rocking horse poo

regards

bjp

Not at all - they're actually one of the more common models (though some forms of the folding handle are harder to find than others as Mark will tell you!). Not marked as "No. 3" though so confuse the issue a little!

Nobby - as you are aware (I know because we read the same books!) Elwyn and others don't believe that there was a Mark 8 as such - the Delmatic being it (though why there are no model 1 Delmatics around is anyone's guess!), but I too have never seen a 7 (or a 9 for that matter) in the flesh. Maybe the Tea Club can shed some light?

ATB

Jim

[Nobby]

Sorry Kevan, I should have mentioned those are images I've picked up from the internet, many of them from eBay listings.


I have got a few Ambidexes and I like them,... but they are very hard to get running well and not particularly well made, If I'm to be frank.

I like them, they're British and part of out history, but it's a lot easier to make a Mitchell purr!


That said, they can be made to work well...it just takes a lot longer if you get a stiff one, and parts don't always successfully swap from one reel to another. Literally everything needs checking and they reminded me of some of my long-forgotten engineering skills ( if indeed I ever had them) when working on old motorbike engines many years ago.


I did do a little stripdown and rebuild on a Mark 2 FP here:

http://www.thepathbythewater.net/bb_tpb ... ?f=4&t=705


I now think the reel is a Mark 2FP, but who knows :-) ?

The usual Ambidex story, bought another for spares, found it was SO good I couldn't strip it for bits and now I own two.


Which, as I've said elsewhere, is how we lost the dining room!

[AshbyCut]

how we lost the dining room!

... or, in my case, the spare bedroom !