Refurbishing ABU Lures and Baits

 Tomba from Sweden who will outline here some refurbishment techniques he uses.

His observations from collecting and cleaning are here.

 My  thoughts initially here in blue

First we will consider the argument of cleaning?

Some collectors will never clean up a bait, rather to display in as found condition.

Others will always want to make it look as close to original as possible.

Some will not collect unless perfect in every way, including the the accompanying box or card.

All have a place in my collection, as some will never be found MIB or MOC , so I would rather collect any sample irrespective of condition.

My only limit is collecting Swedish made and not Asian made (post 1981) samples.

 

I love my ABU lures so much I even repaint some for actual fishing use or display as my indulgence.

This can turn into this in beautiful looking lures to fish or display.

 

Tomba's terms and conditions for polishing refurbishing.
 
1: why? to fish with the bait, to keep it as  collectible, or to sell (and then you must point out that it has been refurbished!)
 
2: condition of lure in ten steps (f.i) 1-3 good bait, only slightly dirty or a little oxidation. 4-6 a really dirty oxidated but otherwise good lure without any damage on the embossing. 7-8 a bad bait with missing paint and embossing is injured. 9-10. a nightmare bait. you can get it fishable again, but never for a collection.. what it takes to make it shine again?
 
3: changing of hooks and attractors. a damaged hook is worthless, so if you change it, try to find an orginal hook if you want the lure to stay as close the original lure as possible. i mean, if i change my orginal toby to another orginal toby, whats the difference? a hook is a hook if its original.. and how can we know the hook on the lure is original if we havent bought it when it was sold the first time? that's my opinion anyway.
 
4: keeping after the lure after refurbishing. good polish don't just clean, it also protects the lure from being oxidated again. just be sure that you have the right polish, and try out it on a lure you can sacrifice if the polish would damage the colours or something like that. (people have cleaned gold, silver, tea-cans and god knows what for ages so the risk is pretty minimal it actually ruins your lure)
 
5: type of lure. painted lures are much harder if you scrub too hard. lures with large scales needs more polishing to get away all the oxid and dirt (glimmy and koster for ex.)
 
6: price of lure. don't do this on your 300 dollar Pendeldraget if you don't for sure know what you are doing. It's mainly for your own use and to get old lures fishable again.

Here is an example of some lures being cleaned.

Remove hardware

Pep, Ellips, Toby and Rick to clean.

Use Haxan liquid polish, apply liberally, alternately front and back and roll over edges.

Let dry

Use cotton cloth

Perservere! Nearly there!

Worth it I think! 

Another successful transformation of a Pep

Thanks Tomba!

Unusual finds by Tomba

Salar:  painted over hole for split rings and hook

 

Safir: Undocumented colour (factory experiment?)

Toby struck from wrong side

A Toby struck on obverse,  possibly created by a worker at Svangsta for personal use.

At last my mate Tomba has decided to show his face. A capable fisherman as you can see with these nice ones.

 I am still looking for items in any condition , whether loose, carded or boxed:   such as Kelly, Doublespinnaren, Svangsta spinnaren, Toby, Hogbom, Whirler or Virveln, Tilly, Safir, Sally,  ABU Spoon, Joker, Glimmy, Atom, Tommy, Hazard or Mac Dan in any size or colour (or other metal lures) are needed to continue studies as well as the plastics such as Killer, Hi-Lo (Heddon ABU Hi-Lo River Runt Spook, any colour other than RH , I need XBW, XRY, L and D for my collection. The Kynoch in T or the rakan in black are still to be found to record. Full recognition for any assistance offered  will be provided on this site. My name and website is well known to many ABU reel collectors in USA, but unfortunately I do not know too many ABU lure collectors there. Looking  forward to getting to know more and perhaps trade some doubles of lures too!

 

If you have any other lures, that are un-needed or doubles in your collection and are available for swapping or a reasonable fee, I would be very pleased to hear from you.