French silk thread

[DarrellP]

I just got a spool of French silk thread from Feathercraft. I am going to do a side by side comparison with my Pearsall's silk. Of course, the French will say they have saved Western Civilization with it.

[Terrestrial12]

Does it seem to be about right? For me personally I don't care as much if the colors are matched perfectly. As long as it's close enough. What gets me is the actual size. The Japanese and English substitutes I've tried have been much larger. More like rod winding

[Roadkill]

About a month ago i visited a French silk fabric shop that has been looming silk the old fashioned way since the 1800's...

RIMG4524 by William Lovelace, on Flickr

They get their best quality silk from Japanese exporters who brought silkworms to Brazil ages ago.

T12 see viewtopic.php?f=22&t=8845, Kimono is my replacement for Pearsall's.

[DOUGSDEN]

DarrellP,
I too just rec'd a spool of French silk (orange, my favorite) from a recent Feathercraft order. I too bought it just to experiment but, as of yet, I have not experimented! It was good to hear about the larger sizes of silks as compared to Pearsalls! Bill, your picture of the silk shop and description below it is fascinating! Thanks guys for sharing these neat pics and observations!
Sometimes in Den,
Dougsden

[DarrellP]

I plan on tying some to compare this weekend. I took my wife to dinner and ate too much to feel like tying this evening. The Pinot noir here is amazing.

[Oenophileangler]

Hi DarrellP,

I went to the Feather-Craft.com site, and found the Ovale Ephemera Silk Floss. Is that what you're referring to?

Thanks, Dale

[DarrellP]

Yes. I have not tried it yet. I will tie some p & o files with it today, unless my honey do list gets too long.

[jcwillow777]

I've been using Ephemera silk for about 5 years. When I learned about Spiders and Soft Hackles from a presentation by John Shaner, I started my pursuit for Pearsall silk. I got to the dance too late. In the process I found Ephemera. I can't compare it to Pearsall, but others say there is no comparison. I have been happy with it.

One draw back is how it tangles sometimes coming off the spool. I have learned how to deal with that, making sure the tension on the bobbin isn't too tight. When pulling out silk to wax it, I hold onto the silk as it comes off the spool to make sure it doesn't dig deep into the spool.

All in all, I am very happy with it, and most importantly, so are the trout.

[Oenophileangler]

https://flymphforum.com/viewtopic.php?f ... 63#p111173

I tied the above using Ephemera floss. Silk does have a sheen that I really like.

I don't think you can really compare the thickness of this floss with Pearsall's Gossamer thread. The floss is much thicker. Older posts here compare Pearsall's thread with Semperfli Pure Silk and the consensus is that the Pure Silk product is much thicker. I have a couple of spools of the Semperfli product, and the Ephemera floss is much thicker than Pure Silk, so it's gotta be much thicker than Pearsall's. I have no Pearsall's to do a direct comparison.

Ovale Silk thread would be a better comparison.

I agree with jcwillow; the wooden spools that Ephemera uses have a rough grain which does catch fibers.

Dale

[Terrestrial12]

Yes the semperfli pure silk is garbage in my opinion. It's quite large in diameter and just has a "scruffy" cheap feeling texture. Makes my skin crawl sliding trough my fingers. It's fine for spider bodies if you want a pretty fat little body but no good for spinning flymph bodies. Unless you split a single piece and re spin it. So the ephemera is even thicker than that??? It's a true floss and not so much a "thread"? I'm surprised to hear this because people seem to like it a lot. I suppose you can just tie in a length to wrap for your body and use regular tying thread for doing your hackle and head.