Head Clinic

[GlassJet]

For stray hackle fibers-I use to slip a small piece of swizzle straw /plastic straw coffee stirrer, over the thread and tying tube of my bobbin. Just before finishing the head, I'd slide the straw up the tube and string and over the fly and hackles to hold them back, out of the way. Then I'd whip finish, slide the straw back onto the bobbin tube and cut off the thread. If you do not know what I'm talking about, I'll see if I can post a photo.
Mark

Hi Mark, yes, I do that too with the short length of straw trick - if you slit the tube length-ways, you can just slip it over the thread and then over the hackle and onto the fly body when needed.

Mark re problem I am having and Willowhead re advantage of Leisenring method:

The advantage is (regarding finishing with a neat head) that you are winding the hackle *away* from the hook eye, and binding down hackle thorax side, then coming back through the hackle and finishing off - so there are no material there that can get caught up in the whip finish.

The disadvantage, for me, is that you are binding down the hackle thorax side....

I have managed to convince myself that getting just the right amount of 'straggle' in the thorax region, with a spiky material such as hare's ear, helps me catch fish. (I think in the water the soft hackle flows back through the spikier hair and creates some nice visual *noise* for the fish.... it's a good story anyway, and I catch fish like this so I am happy. )

I am having problems snipping off the waste hackle after binding it down thorax-side if there is a lot of other material around.

But that's only three I've tried - in my mind's eye I think I might have solved it - will have another play later.

Willowhead re neatness of heads: I can see what you mean, and when i was tying up some Irish patterns a while ago I go very into it, and finishing off with varnish etc. But there was simply more room to do so as I was tying on #8 and #10 hooks. The biggest I generally tie on is #14 using Pearsall's silk, so I tend to tie off (either method) with a load of wax on the silk and a three turn whip finish - as I believe did Big Jim himself?

I know some use a finer thread to scale it all down, but I like to use Pearsall's because of the colours, and I just like the *feel* of it, really!

Re Scissors - yours look superb! I use Dr Slick, but they are not so fine as that.

Andrew

[Soft-hackle]

I'll be searching for those scissors-Mark.

Mark

[GlassJet]

Hey - I could get used to this! 4 of 4


Grouse and Hare's Ear by GlassJet, on Flickr

Very cool. Takes me a lot longer than my other method, but I guess that is just practice! Thanks folks, for nudging me along to give it a try!

Andrew

[tie2fish]

Andrew ~ For what it's worth, keeping in mind that I am no expert when it comes to this, it appears from your photos that your "messiness" is more due to dubbing control than to head wrapping technique. I say this because I suffer from the same malady, particularly when dressing flymph type patterns that call for wrapping loose, spiky dubbing trapped in a brush (or loop). I have yet to find a fail-safe method for keeping loose dubbing ends from getting in the way while I'm tying off the head, but paying more attention to the last thread wrap or two when tying off the dubbing seems to help some.

[daringduffer]

Dr Slick has a model

SA35GMT
Arrow Scissor
3 1/2"

that might be the one recommended. MT is read Micro Tip. But the picture is lousy http://www.drslick.com/products_scissors1.asp

That would be something for christmas, Andrew. The one willowhead recommended, I mean. We need the product number!! I've been on the lookout for just this kind of scissors for a long time now. I have a tactile thing about scissors...

dd

[willowhead]

Mark.....you will LOVE those scissors.

dd.....any fly shop that sell Dr. Slick can get them for you.....the key word (pretty sure), is NEEDLE. If they have a catalog of Dr. Slick's scissors.....you'll find it in there.

Andrew.....looks like your flies are becomming nicer and nicer and nicer. And yes, looks like i remembered correctly bout the taking the hackle back towards the bend and then forward again. But that's simply not nessessary with the hackle we have use of today. Our genetic hackle today is capeable of making 30/40 who knows how many turns (or a half dozen flies), with a single feather.
Another thing i suggest you do, is to remember that the over-all shape of your heads is going to be determind by how and where you make your final wraps, and afterwards, you need to use the right finishing materials.....head cements, etc., etc.
i counted the other day, (becaause someone had challanged me on another site when i refered to the 50 or so bottels of "whatever" that i have, and use on heads).....well i counted over 70 actually. i use different things for different situations, and depending on what i'm tying. Of course if your only tying fishin' flies, you can probably get away with a single bottel of a good water based head cement.....and you SHOULD be using something water based. i reccommend Hard Headed. It's the BEST water based head cement there is. Dries extremely shinny. Hard Headed is also GREAT for correcting an mistakes you may have made with your wraps, and or filling in the little spaces or dips you may have created mistakenly. You need to learn "How" to use it.....ALWAYS apply it with a bodkin.....NOTHING else. And while you may want to use a lot (not a problen), don't use a lot at once.....at least until you really learn the nature of the stuff. Use small amounts at a time, and continuely rotate the fly (head) as you apply it.
Since you don't dye or color your heads, you'll have no need for Griff's Thin as a first coat. Griff's Thin is THE BEST first coat "medicine" there is. It penetrates all the way down thru the wraps, "sets" the color, dries very quickly, and does not alter or change the color. NOTHING is better for your first coat. But here we're talkin' show flies.
i only use water based head cements on fishin' flies. So no use of the Griff's, or any Sally Hansen's products, or other chemicly based products, on a fishin' fly.
Good luck.

[daringduffer]

Or maybe these http://www.schmidtoutfitters.com/index. ... N=97401751

dd

[willowhead]

YES! .....dd.....i think you've done it.....as far as finally finding a decent pic of them.....pretty dang sure that's the one's. i have a half dozen pair.....and that pic sucks, but i think that's the ones. NOT the arrows (first url).....the Needle pair (second url).....
Life would be unbearable without them.

[daringduffer]

YES! .....dd.....i think you've done it.....as far as finally finding a decent pic of them.....pretty dang sure that's the one's. i have a half dozen pair.....and that pic sucks, but i think that's the ones. NOT the arrows (first url).....the Needle pair (second url).....
Life would be unbearable without them.

Is this better..?

http://www.shannonsflytacklestore.com/m ... 8ee7_m.bmp

dd

[willowhead]

Now i don't think so.....those points don't look long enough.....the ones i'm telling y'all bout have longer points (tips) than that, thereby making them able to be machined even finer (needle points), than those. Hell, that might be them.....just hard to tell by that pic. The "BITCH" is that i cannot find them on the internet at Doc Slick's site..........pretty stupid.....how can people but them if they can't fin them?????? DUH! The pic above that my wife took, only shows the tips themselves in a close up. But anyway.....you'll know them INSTANTLY when you finally see them in hand at the fly shop or whatever........so don't worry.....the problem is, you may think you've found them, and they will perhaps be the wrong pair if you have nothing to compare them to. Not everyone lives where the is a really good fly shop that either has them already or know what your taking about, EXACTLY. Dr. Slick is really screwin' up by not makin' them easy to find on the web. i got my first pair (of that very model) in the funniest way. i actually wrote Dr. Slcik a letter or sent an email.....(this was round 1999 or 2000, 2001 at the latest), i'm not sure which it was, and offered to review their scissors and write an article for the Catskill Fly Tyers Guild, (which if later did and sent them a copy) if they would send me a pair. They did, and it was THAT very pair with the unbelieveably fine pointed tips. Keep lookin'.