ReelStoration Project

Being a bit of a fair weather kayak angler,  aka  Cold Weather WIMP,  I have been playing around with some fishing gear projects waiting for sunny days and calmer seas to come.   One was to try and bring back some life to a number of used reels I bought during the winter. Typical,  to a bad problem I have of logging onto ebay late at night when wise purchases / bidding is not the norm. 
Picked up a batch of several well used Penn GT - GTI series reels that must have come from a charter boat's inventory.   Went through internals and replaced anything worn so to give to friends as gifts.   Problem was they still just looked like well used garage sale reels.
I decided to give one a make over via buffing all metal back to a nice chrome finish.  Having picked up airbrush materials years ago to find I have no artistic talent,  I went to town with some Urethane auto paint and 2 part clear coat.  Don't know why I went with black on body with red ends, but it has motivated me to tackle a couple more if not just to choose better colors and improve my skills.   
Goal is to eventually get good enough outcome to make a special NWKA / HOTW edition with their Logo / Graphics so to donate for their use in perhaps an auction.     

Started with this:



Ended up with this:



If anyone has good experience with auto body / custom painting, I could wear your ears out with questions.     

I'm a huge fan of restoration projects. And I especially  love reel projects. That looks really slick. If you made custom logos for the side plate and and gave it a clear coat to protect it would be so sick.

Nice work! Those look like something American Restoration would do. The red/black looks sweet.

That looks great!  I like the red and black.

That looks awesome!  How robust do you think the paint and clearcoat is to saltwater?

I would expect it to do well.   I believe auto's only suffer in coastal environments when the salt gets to the metal under the paint.   How well it will hold up to abuse I can only be optimistic.  I will give them away with some JAWS reel covers to help protect them during transport which for me is when the worst seems to happen. 

 I went to a friends shop for the paint materials.   This reel happens to be painted with Rossa Corsa Red and Nero Black.   Remnant paint left over from a couple Ferrari repairs which he was nice enough to just give me for free.   This will be as close as I will ever be to owning a Ferrari 

You undersell yourself. That's nice work as it is already.