Glue ball eggs

[Mickfoo 0]

Hello, I am new to the forum and am interested in making some glue ball eggs. I have been using a few recently with good success. Couple of questions are, do I need a separate glue gun for each color? Is there a special "tool" that is used to form the egg pattern or do you just form it right from the hot glue gun? Any suggestions/help would be appreciated!

[DHise 0]

I believe you drop the ball out of the gun and drop the fly in a glass of cold water.

[oatka 0]

do I need a separate glue gun for each color?

 

I've never done those, but I bet that when changing colors you'll get a little mixing of the old and new color, but then it will clear up and be just the new color!

 

Good luck and post pictures!

 

 

....and welcome to the site!

 

[Bruce Derington 0]

From the gun to the hook to the water

[nemoblackdog 0]

I've been using glue ball eggs with pretty good success. Since I like a few different colors (or at least shades of colors), swapping out different color glue sticks or having multiple glue guns is pretty impractical and wasteful - at least for a non-commercial tying.

 

I use plain white/clear glue sticks. These are the plain-old glue sticks that are used for, well, gluing - not the colored ones for decorative purposes. I've got two different methods for getting different colors.

 

Method 1: Sharpies

-Put a small gob of glue on the hook - about 1/2 the size of the final egg. Dunk in water to set the shape. (I'll usually do a few at a time to this stage). This makes an egg "core"

-Dry off with a absorbent cloth or paper towel. If you don't dry it off, the Sharpie ink won't stick.

-Color the now dry egg core with a Sharpie of your color choice - red, orange, pink - whatever. Mixing colors on the same egg is cool, too!

-Apply remainder of clear glue over the top of the colored core - sealing the color in. The colored "core" shows through very well.

 

If you're deft with a glue gun, then you're done. However, if you make a misshapen blob, like I often do, then you'll need to fix it up. This is actually pretty easy. Put the fly in a pair of locking hemostats. Use a butane lighter or candle and carefully wave the misshaped egg ball around the flame to soften it up. Keep the egg rotating so it doesn't drip completely off the hook. Done right, this will cause the glue blob to unify into a nice roundish drop. You can actually see the glue go completely transparent when it's at its softest. Once you get it to the shape you want, quickly dunk in a cup of water to set the shape. Try to get the glue ball to sit on top of the "back" of the hook, so as not to fill up the hook gap.

 

Method 1a:

Color the 2nd layer of glue - it's even cooler with a second color of Sharpie pen.

-Use the butane lighter trick to melt the outer layer of glue and pen ink together - this way the outside color is permanent.

 

Method 1b:

-Don't bother with a core, just put a whole blob on, color it, and "set" it as above with the butane lighter. This is the fastest way, but the effects aren't as interesting.

 

Method 2 - colored beads and thread:

-Mount a bead on the hook (red, orange, pink, again - your choice.)

-Put glue on over bead. Finish as above. This has an even neater 3-D effect. A blue bead with a red/orange outer is very cool!

 

My favorite variation for glue flies is to tie on a yarn veil like is on the Nuclear Egg pattern. I call it, what else, the Nuclear Meltdown.

 

A tip on putting the glue onto the hook: keep the tip of the glue gun as close to the hook as possible - it doesn't even hurt if they touch. If you're too far away, the glue drop will be way too huge and hard to control. When you get the right amount of glue on the hook, "draw" tiny little circles with the tip of the glue gun - this will allow the drop to separate from the gun without pulling out a long trailing "thread" of glue.

 

I bet within 3 or 4 attempts, you'll find this is a really easy method to master - It sounds much harder here than it really is. Once you get the hang of it, you can crank out the flies much faster than traditional tying techniques.

 

(Really mess up a fly? Just wave it over a flame to let the glue drop off and start over!)

 

 

 

 

[Mickfoo 0]

Thanks for all info, I'll be giving it a try.

[Bruce Derington 0]

Nemo, great advice , I'm going to give this a try :headbang:

[RoyGPA 0]

Sure would be cool to see some pictures.

 

Thanks

 

 

Found some, never mind... amazing what a simple google search will turn up.

 

Roy