Galdrin

Davies videos is where I got the idea to try and make the same wax that he uses (more or less).

Most of my dubbing I actually do without wax. But I was strugeling a bit with tying down feathers, tinsel and such and this is where I found that the wax with a high part of rosin did wonders for me.

As so often with me one thing leads to another. In my case flytying lead to researching wax used for flytying and recently I have noticed that I spend more time on wax related subjects than on flytying I just had to post this for all those that thinks that wax is wax and there is nothing more to it. In my flytying I now use classic Cobblers wax (or handwax as it's also called), a modern variant of cobblers that doesn't tint the thread and a variant of Fraser Sandemans wax as described in his book from 1894 that is much softer and suitable for dubbing while still holding a large portion of rosin.

Alexandra, slightly different from how it normally looks today. I tried to follow an old description of the fly from MOM's book.

Bad picture but fun experiment. #14 hook emu feather spider

Tried my hands in a Greenwell's Glory today. To large wings? That's a #10 hook.

Chuck, please keep posting you advancement here if you have some spare time. I'm new to fly tying and I'm also going for the classic looks and just as you I've encountered some trouble with getting the wings to keep their form.

Ok, now I need help with identifying theese feather. I know the box says optical mouse but I've never heard of a bird with that name The feathers are really fluffy and light weight and as soon as I touch the box I have small parts of the feathers floating around in the air, would hate to sneeze with the box opened. Could this be the Cul de Canard I've heard people talk about?

Thanks you for the video, I'll check it out. Also thank you for the image of the Wyoming version. I'll try and make both for my collection. My goal is to make classic flies as they are described in the books but I'd also love to have some variants next to them.

Stupid question but how do I make a Mikey Finn streamer without blending the yellow/red/yellow part of the bucktail? As soon as I start securing the bunches of bucktail to the hook it starts spreading and covers all.

I've been trying to make a Europea 12 fly like the ones I see in pictures online. The last itteration came close enough I think. I think this was a really good learning experience.

After trying out a few other materials I finally managed to make this fly that I'm quite pleased with for the moment. Short tail of a few barbs from a blue dun hackle. Dubbed natural hare body ribbed with yellow tying thread. Wing of mallard hen and a brown cock hackle.

Trying my new wax while tying a Europea 12. The fly is better than last time and I now know that I won't be using bought wax for quite a while Edit: after looking at other dry flies I see that my hackle looks a bit long. It's way to long for a dry, isn't it?

My wax actually melted and mixed really well. No lumps and it's "waxy" in room temperature, but if I hold it in my hand it becomes sticky. I'll try to bind a few flies with it tonight but so far I think it came out really well.

No new flies but I've managed to source all the materials needed to make my own cobblers wax, not the dark version but the more amber colored version. So time to start cooking

I have no idea what fish it's for as I'm not fishing myself But the pattern is called Europea 12 and is supposed to imitate a sedge fly.

Body of hares ear on #12 hook, rib of yellow tying silk, tiny tail of a few black cock hackles, wing of mallard hen flank (I think atleast) and a hackle of ginger-ish cock hackle. I lost it at the end and the wing fel down on the side but othervise I think I got close to a nice fly on my first try. New try tomorrow! The pictures should atleast give an idea of what I'm trying to do.​

I have those feather to, but thats Mallard drake flank or? I need a few mallard hen flank feather, but I think the once in the bag are mallard after some more googeling. Here is a better picture on a few of the feathers from the bag.

I'm playing around with whatever I find in my box of feathers and stuff. Today the result was a Mickey Finn streamer on #10 streamer hook. I thought working with the bucktail was a challenge. I think I got the hairs right in the end, more or less, but totally failed on the head. I'll need to search the internet for helpfull tips on tying this kind of hairwings before I try again. Next I'll try a dryfly that I've been looking at for a while. I haven't found to much info on the internet and the only Youtube movie I found was of a variant while I want to make a more original one. Problem is that it calls for Mallard female flank and I think I have a bag of that but the bag has lost it's label. Is this Mallard female flank, and if not, what could it be?

Did some more practicing on the hare's ear following the info in the link shared by Flytire and I think the end result isn't to bad. I was also looking through my flytying box that contains a lot of feathers that I don't remember where they came from and found a bag with some mixed content. Do you guys think there is a pattern that uses the stuff in the bag or did they just end up in the same zip-lock because of lazy ness?

Flytire, thanks for those links. The Charlie site contained tons of stuff I was looking around for and the other site was a good one too. At the moment I'm waiting for my wife to leave the house so I can use the bullet blender on her Kitchen Aid

Did a new try on the classic Hare's ear nymph. Tried to keep the dubbing tight and nice on the thread this time and I feel the body is more well defined on this try.

Today I decided to try out some dubbing techniques on a hare's ear nymph. It's far from perfect and I'll be doing it over again tomorrow when Iäve had some more time to think on what worked and what didn't. Fatter thorax and shorter boddy is one thing I'll change and I'll try some other ribbing instead of the brass wire I had at hand.

Thanks for the nice comments. Next up I'll try a few hare's mask nymphs, but I still need to work a little on my dubbing skills Short question, I found a box of Kamasan B800 size 4 in my flytying box, what kind of classic flies would make use of such a hook?

Starting a thread to remind myself of what I've been tying, how (if?) my tying has evolved and, of course, gather comments on what to do different. First out is a few spiders that I've been working on the last week just to get a feel for thread, hackle and the size of the hooks. Hot spot spider: #14 Black thread, golden olive silk and black hens hackle. Orange & Partridge: #14 Orange thread and partridge hackle