mounting flies in shadow boxes, frames, etc

[hankaye]

Ray, Howdy;

The "new" talents that you keep leaking out never
cease to amaze...

Well done Sir.

hank

[Tom Smithwick]

First, I apologize for the lousy photos with reflections, bad lighting, etc. At one time, our TU chapter ran a fly of the month raffle as a fund raiser. Each month, we also saved one of the flies and made up shadow box to be raffled as an additional fund raiser. At first, I had the mounting done professionally, but it was expensive. I wound up getting some equipment and doing it myself, and broke even on the $$ pretty quickly.
Most art supply stores will carry the matting boards. I always used white for the background, and either white or colored for the front part. It is thick, stiff stuff. The deep framing moulding is harder to get. I had get an account set up through the TU chapter with a framing supply house. I already had a saw and a miter trimmer, so making the frames was not too hard.
The method I used was to mount the flies by gluing them to a 1/16" diameter clear plastic dowel. The dowels were about 1" long with one end filed sharp, the other filed flat. Then I used 5 minute epoxy, now I would use the UV cure stuff. Poke a hole in the matting where the fly goes and adjust its position. When they are all in place, turn the matting over and put a drop of epoxy where the dowel comes through the matting. When dry, clip off the excess dowel length. When gluing the dowel to the fly, I held the fly on its side in a vise and tried to glue the dowel as straight and square as possible. The whole business is a lot of fussy work. Now, I think I would try the bead and wire method.

[RickA]

Nice work, Tom.
I couldn't help but notice the RNTU logo and not to get off topic but.....
I knew a few of your members when I chaired the state council.
Andy B tied one mean winged wet. Bob P helped with our youth camps and
Tim E was just full of energy. A great group of guys.
Small world.

[Tom Smithwick]

I moved to central PA 12 years ago Rick, and seldom see any of the guys from Southern NJ. You are right, though, considering the trout desert we lived in, we had a bunch of talented people. A gentleman by the name of Bill Fink helped me get started as a cane rod builder over 35 years ago. I met him at a chapter meeting. In fact, the small shadow box of Henryville specials you see in the picture were tied by Bill, who was a member of the Henryville club and wrote the article that introduced the fly. I told the story here a few years ago.