FLYMPH FORUM

I've been trying to work out the body material on a commercial soft hackle. I've identified the color, but can't find the thread. It is a silk, its not gossamer pearsall's, it appeared to be button hole twist. I took a chance and ordered some button hole twist silk from Superior threads, but it was too large diameter...
Question is: are there button hole twists of various diameters? Who makes them, and who has colors similar to Pearsall's?

The image is the commercial fly..size 18...

Usually button hole twists are 3 stranded. I usually use 1 strand when tying a fly.

Tom

In “The Book” it says “better than the buttonhole twist available today (1970), however is Pearsall’s Marabou floss silk”. I use Belding buttonhole twist I got on eBay.

I think all button hole threads are probably going to be too big for a #18. There are slightly different sizes but they are all big.

Marabou floss can be split.

I twisted three strands of Alec Jacksons Premium silk floss and got pretty close..., I also tried to separate the 3 strands on the Superior button hole stuff, but that was a glorious failure...

ronr,

I agree with Carl that buttonhole twist might be a little bulky for my taste on the #18.

Here is a #18 I just tied with Kinkame #50 that I get from Britex in San Francisco.
https://www.britexfabrics.com/catalogse ... d&q=thread

This thread is larger than Pearsall's Gossamer.

IMGP5935 by William Lovelace, on Flickr

Hi Ronr
The top spool is Pearsalls, the others are Belding Corticelli. None of them are all that easy to separate without getting a bunch of fuzz. I would also be inclined to find some #50 or #60 thread. Just curious though, are you sure the commercial fly is silk? the body of the fly does look a lot like the body of a serendipity pattern which was popular a while back. They were tied with Antron yarn, which could be separated into smaller bunches pretty easily for smaller flies.

tom.. its is possible that it is not silk..but I've tried everything I can think of to find its duplicate.
Probably silly to care that much about the material.. but this fly has caught fish for me. Since it is a commercially tied fly and available in fly shops in the area.. it probably is not silk now that I think about it, but its a dead ringer for the color of the pearsall's orange silk. I've tried separating some of the silks.. and yes, the fuzz creates a problem.. the closest match I've found is twisting strands of the Alec Jackson silk floss... I will see if I can get some Anton to work...

thanks for all the suggestions from the membership..

Good call Tom. That does look like it could be a serendipity body.