Tairyo Rollergun Item No.04

Origin:	Japan, Asia	Collection:	Jack Prodanovich
Year:	?	Described by:	John Warren
Maker:	Tairyo	Photo by:	John Warren
Do you have more info about this item?		Last updated:	27.03.2006.

 

 

 

Description

I visited with Jack Prodanovich to talk about spearfishing and speargun design. While I was there, Jack brought out a beautiful little antique from his personal collection. It was a little rollergun. By today's standards this implement for spearfishing would be considered a mere toy, but some of the design features are certainly worth revisiting.

Complete gun with loaded spear, string but without rubber bands

This gun was without rubber bands. It is easy to perceive that there were two seperate rubber bands attached to the sides of the gun at the metal loops. Each band would go around the small brass roller on eachside of the front of the gun and then hook onto the shaft carrier mechanism. We understand that the bands were not round, but flat.Was it possible that the bands never left the carrier? Does anyone know today? How was the shooting line rigged? We could not figure out if there was a line release. There appears to be a primative "safety" under the gun. A twisted wire loop that was fastened to the trigger was engaged by a movable hook (like a gate hook) preventing the trigger from being pulled back. I will leave the rest of the dynamics of this classic little antique to your imagination.

As you can see the size and scale of this Early Rollergun is quite small. Note the layout of the metal components. The front of the gun shows an anchoring plate for the two metal rods that the shaft carrier rode upon as well as the position of the rollers and front line fastening point. The spear shaft has a small slide ring. The stop for the spearshaft is back by the notch. It is a small rod that sticks downward into a recessed track, but the shaft does not ride in the track.The track is only to provide clearance for the slide ring stop. Please notice there is a plate at the front of the speargun. No large holes have been bored through the wood weakening it. Band anchors are D-shaped metal rings attached to the side of the gun.

Roller detail

Bottom view, layout and position of rollers

The top back of the gun shows the spearshaft carrier mechanism as well as the two runner bars that allow the carrier to slide forward. The spearshaft is split for a short way allowing the carrier to engage it. The one-piece trigger-sear engages a small notch on the underside of the spearshaft.

Top back view, carrier in place

Bellow image shows the carrier has moved down the rails, just past the trigger-sear. It can be seen that the carrier is propelling the spearshaft toward the front of the gun.

Top back view, carrier moved forward

On the side of the gun is a nicely printed metallic lable.

Speargun side detail

Masahiro Mori is a spearfisherman in the Southern California who lives in Los Angeles, and was nice enought to send me this explanation. The Top line reads,... "Tok'kyo Shitsu Gan-Chu", which means that it is currently under process of being registered for design, or simply Pending a Patent. The 3 large characters on the bottom reads, " Tai-Ryo-Go" This is the model name of the gun. "Tai-Ryo" is a teminology that the Japanese use when the fish are wide open. When my father describes a time when the fish were all over the place, he says that today, the fish were "Tai-Ryo". The "Go" in "Tai Ryo Go" for this application is used as meaning "model" . "Go" is also used as distiction between vessels or machinery. For example, if there are several submarines of the same type, they may be called 1-Go , 2-Go, 3-Go, etc. The last character on the bottom right hand side reads "Gata" The closest translation I can give is "Type". For example, a person with type "0" blood is called "O-Gata" in Japanese.

Name plate detail

For additional information and views of another Asian rollergun in Ron Mullin's collection see item 05. Description and photos © John Warren

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