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Alex C.

Crayfish I'm Working On

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I thought I'd post pictures as I go along on this crayfish I'm tying. I've spent the last 3-4 days just studying miscellaneous crayfish pics and finally got started tonight. When finished it'll be about 1 3/4" long, not including the front claws extending out. I'm gonna tie it alot like Brent tied his, but I'll be trying to "make it my own" as I go along. He's set the bar pretty high as far as tying these critters go....that bastard :P

 

So here's where I'm at, maybe some of you other guys can tie along with me.

 

The hook is a 1/0 Gamakatsu #58411 "Offset Shank Worm EWG" I heated up the 90* bend just before the eye and straightened it out. Next I wrapped a thread foundation from the eye, to a point about halfway down the bend. Then I tied in the 3 tail pieces like you see in the picture below. They are made from white micro thin foam(Hareline), then colored with a brown Edding marker. Then coated with Softex. (The second coat is still drying.)

 

IPB Image

 

Coloring them after I already tied them in was a pain in the butt, from now on I'm gonna color everything before tying in :wallbash: :lol:

 

Now I'm gonna form the underbody.

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So far, so like! :thumbsup: I don't mean to rush you but I already have the butter and garlic warming up for that Cray!!! Hmmm, and a nice dry white wine... :D

 

Really though, I looks great so far, I like the coloring and realistic look. Ambitious project, have fun working on it, Alex. Thanks for posting a play-by-play as you work on it.

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I'm gonna be doing the underbody in 2 parts.

 

This first part I just finished is basicly just to get the width I need for this fly. I use 2 pieces of white 2mm foam(Wal-Mart), and cut out 2 rectangles the length of the entire body. Next I held one on top of the other and with my scissors, cut the basic body taper along the edges to roughly get the shape of the body.

 

Next I held one piece under the shank in position, then, with my thread just behind the eye, I took one wrap around it to hold it in place. Then I took my other piece and held it in position on top of the shank, and took another wrap, this time around both pieces, and then continued wrapping, (each wrap spaced apart by about 1/2"), till I got to the tail. Then I took and fine tuned the edges with my scissors to make sure the side-to-side body profile was how I want it. Of course when I did this I had to cut some of the previous thread wraps(the loose looking ones in the picture), but it didn't matter because I trimmed the chest cavity(front half) first. Then re wrapped up it, then trimmed the abdomen(bottom half), and wrapped back down to the tail.

 

Once I had this part of the underbody shaped how I wanted it. I went back up to the eye one more time from the tail, and back down to the tail. Finally I coated the whole body with Sally Hansen's Hard as Nails.

 

You can kind of see the body posture I'm going for now, like the one in this picture, it'll be doing what they do when you catch one, have it on land, and it's kinda trying to scoot away from you :lol:

IPB Image

 

IPB Image

 

IPB Image

 

Now I'm going to start the second part of forming the underbody. This is the part where I'm going to basicly get the entire body shaped out before I start adding the exoskeleton, legs, and all that other stuff.

 

If anyone ever decides to try following along with this, it's important to have your underbody just how you want it. Cause if you mess up, theres not really any going back to fix your mistakes.

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Alright, now the underbody is pretty close to where it needs to be.

 

I used strips of small vernille, and tied them in here and there till I got the basic shape the body will be.

 

IPB Image

 

IPB Image

 

A few times I felt like I was heading for disaster, but it looks alright now. After I got all of the strips tied in, I completely covered the whole body with side by side thread wraps. Then coated it with one coat of Sally Hansen's.

 

Now I'll take my thread back down to the base of the tail and make the outer layer for the abdomen. Right now I'm planning to form each segment with swiss straw, then after each segment is formed, use micro thin foam over top of it to create that plate effect that they have.

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Got the 1st abdominal segment tied in. :headbang:

 

Well I left the lid open on the Softex, so forgive me if I seem a little giddy :D

 

I took the thread back down to the base of the tail, then I formed an abdominal segment with yellow swiss straw. I want the underbelly to be a lighter color than the top. But I don't want it yellow, so I took my brown Edding marker and colored the yellow, then quickly smeared it with my finger. It's not exactly the color I was hoping for, but it is lighter than the top so I can live with it. Anywho, Once the segment was formed, I took a piece of micro thin foam and cut out a piece roughlly the shape of a half circle. Then colored it brown and tied it in with the curve slightly overlapping the tail, then coated it with Softex.

 

IPB Image

 

You can't tell by this picture, but the foam doesn't cover the bottom, and on the side of the abdomen it still leaves open enough view so that you can still see the lighter color underneath.

 

That doesn't make any sense :lol: , but when I finish the rest of the abdomen, I'll post beter pics with other angles so you can see what I'm trying to say.

 

 

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Great start Homeboy! Looks super. I'm gonna enjoy viewing Your step by steps :rockon: The head for me was the hardest part. The other Crawdad I started awhile back I used white foam colored with orange marker, coated with glue then applied brown coloring where ever needed over the orange base color.

This way I could shade and fade the brown coloring along the edges of the body parts.

Brent

 

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:drunk: Anyone know any Irish Softex Sniffin SOngs?

 

Oh hidey hidey hidey hidey hidey hidey hidey hi!

 

I was sit-tin at me tying bench, tying on me vise

 

When all of the sud-den, I started to to feel kinda nice!

 

I looked down below me nose, and what did I see?

 

A open jar of Softex, makin me giddy

 

Oh hidey hidey hidey hidey hidey hidey hidey hi!

 

:lol:

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Now I'm halfway up the abdomen, the picture I'm going off of has a craw with 6 abdominal segments. In the pic you can start to see things coming together.

 

IPB Image

 

The underbelly color looks kind of metallic dirt yellow in the pic, but it's actually more of a muddy yellow color. Musta came out that way from the lighting. So I've got a few more segments to tie in and I'll be ready to start tying the head and legs.

 

I've thought of a couple different ways that I can do it, and it's gonna be tricky. The one that has the most promise still has one problem in that the second set of thread wraps I'll have to apply when tying it down will probably not look right so I'm still brainstorming for that part as I work on the abdomen. When viewed from underneath, then I need to figure out if I want to tie the legs how Brent did, or if I want to tie them on before I tie on the chest cavity shell. Decisions, Decisions.

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Looking great Alex! You really made me wanna do a crayfish now! :) I really liked your irish softex sniffing song, LOL!

 

Ulf

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Here is a pic to kind of help you see what I'm doing for each segment. First the swiss straw, then cutting the piece of foam out how you see in the picture, then coloring the swiss straw and the micro thin foam and tying it in.

 

IPB Image

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For Gills I usually like to use brown antron yarn, but I can't find mine anywhere so I'm using white EP fibers colored brown instead. Just tie two small tufts in on the left and right sides under the last 2 abdominal segments like this.

 

IPB Image

 

And here is the finished abdomen

 

IPB Image

 

Now things get hard :unsure:

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Got the 1st part of the chest cavity roughly tied on. Now I've got another piece that is gonna wrap around over and...I can't explain it, you'll see later :lol:

 

IPB Image

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