Repairing a holdout - Part 1
Recently I picked up a sleeve holdout which I'm in the process of getting into working order. When I acquired it, it was in pretty poor condition (and still is), for a handful of reasons;
1. It is old. Not 100 years old but nor is it built in the last few years.
2. It is used. This holdout has clearly been used a lot and has been built for function, not aesthetic purposes.
3. It's home-made, albeit intended for actual use, still home-made by a gambler who may well have been professional in his gambling, but clearly amateur in his holdout fabrication skills.
Despite its condition, I'm enjoying getting it into working order.
The hustler it belonged to has passed on, but it's nice to have a little slice of history stay alive in this device, each time I pick it up, and consider the many stories it probably played a part in.
The cords had been removed, perhaps by customs, trying to figure out what the hell it was, but it was not quite in the condition I'd viewed it in at the time of purchase. Regardless, it is different from other holdouts in its working and I have experimented with getting it working as intended. I emailed a couple of folks and have had some useful suggestions that have helped me work through the most likely possible mechanics, but there are still a couple of things I am playing with, to eliminate some strange aspects of the movement. Anyhow, I thought I'd share a little of my repair journey here for anyone interested in holdouts, fix-ups or cheating devices.
In looking through some of my books, I recently read through an old article on holdouts by Tony Giorgio. In the article Giorgio mentions the many holdout workers he knew who were also herion addicts, and I can't help but laugh, when thinking about strapping this thing on in a big money game ... you'd clearly need to be driven by desperation. It actually works pretty well considering how banged up it is, but the thought of it needing it to work in the heat of a real game. ... well, it's hard to imagine. That said, it is clear to me that this holdout is very well used, and I've had a little history on the person who used it.
Strapping this thing on and getting it working, one of the first things that struck me is how uncomfortable it is to use, which is what reminded me of the Giorgio article, in that I guess compared to shooting junk into your arms on a regular basis, it was no big deal, if indeed Giorgio's assertion is as common as he implied. It really digs into my arm and I guess I'd be quickly adding some padding to the arm fittings. In the video below you'll notice how red my arm is near the arm fittings after having this on for about 20 minutes.
I haven't quite found the best place in the arm pit for the pulley, and have a friend making a good "trigger", so there is a bunch of experimentation yet to get the full operation working. Right now I'm focused on things from the elbow down, and I still have a few issues to resolve, so I'm very interested to hear from anyone with any experience with this type of hold out, or something using a similar mechanism.
For anyone else reading this, well I hope seeing this type of sneak in action is of some interest.
It ain't much to look at, but it got the money.
