button hole twist

[ronr]

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...

[upstatetrout]

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

Tom

[wsbailey]

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.

[Old Hat]

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.

[wsbailey]

Marabou floss can be split.

[ronr]

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...

[Roadkill]

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

[Tom Smithwick]

floss.jpeg (111.31 KiB) Viewed 3774 times

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.

[ronr]

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..

[Old Hat]

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