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SnickASaurusRex

Furled Silk Line

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I want to furl a silk fly line. I know that silk fly lines are made on a braider and are tubular in shape. Buuutttt. Seeing as there is this huge road block in sourcing an inexpensive braiding machine. I thought I would try to build a furled line.

 

AM I setting myself up for disaster. I feel that It will only cost a couple days of work and 15 bucks worth of silk, maybe a few headaches.

 

I have a vacuum container and pump so I will be able to impregnate the line with oil. So I will be able to properly finish the line. I have a local source of filament silk in 12 TEX weight. It is very fine and will allow me to make a properly weighted line from 1 to 8. I think I would make a 5wt line since my favorite rod is a 5wt.

 

I have determined the weight of the thread per yard and calculated a strand count and taper chart. I have enough property to build a 100' makeshift rope walk, but I also have a method that I use to make nodeless furled segments. After some consideration and testing. I feel that a 3ply furl will give a proper tubular shape to the line.

 

Am I missing something very important.

Is a furled line even usable. I know it has more stretch than a braided line, but a silk furl is very supple. So what do you all think.

 

 

 

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Wow that would be a lot of hand twisting. Those goose quill things. I think my fingers would fall off after a day of that. I did consider a rope engine, but have since found a high speed counter for the rotary tool.

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Hi, I'm the admin for the reelsmithing forum and furl silk lines. The tools you saw are for furling horse hair. Horse hair is only about 30" long so you need to add in new hairs as you reach the end of a segment. It takes about 1 1/2 hours to furl a 35' horse hair line. There is a post on the silk lines I make with info on furling and coatings. For these I use a furling engine (I make these too) but you can use a rotary tool or drill exactly like furled leader makers use. Before the Industrial Revolution, silk lines were furled. These were most likely 3 strand furls and that is how I make them. They have superior properties to the braided lines in my opinion. The surface texture of the furl creates less friction as the line passes through the guides. This is very similar in principle to the expensive Sharkskin synthetic lines that Scientific Anglers manufactures.

 

cheers,

Michael

The Eclectic Angler

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The line is going well. It is in Victoria Green a bright olive color. I chose to build it in section and a few of my seamless nodes got a little buggy and show a slight bump. I decided to build a WF5 line. I'll be happy to be done. 20' left. I'm going to finish that tonight. It has been a learning experience that is for sure. It involved more math than I had wanted to do.

 

I'll do the finishing on it over the next week.

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I'd love to hear about your method of making this line if you don't mind sharing.

 

Cheers,

Michael

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I'd love to hear about your method of making this line if you don't mind sharing.

 

Cheers,

Michael

 

 

Well the line is a 3 ply line. I use 100wt YLI silk. For the 5wt line I used about 1400 yrds. I build the segments on a furled leader jig that is 12' long. I drilled 1" holes every 4" to accommodate any taper I can dream up. I built the taper first then added 10' segments. I used a sewing needle to loop the next segment through the first segment and so on to make a 90' line. The line began to build up a lot of back twist so I had to completely remove the line from the jig every 10' and let the back twist undo itself then move the butt to the tip end of the leader jig.

 

For the oil vacuum I plan to use a mason jar equipped with a lid that hooks to a food vacuum sealer. then use a varnish making thee coats.

 

It is complicated to explain. I'll be try my best if you have any more questions.

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Nodeless furling? Do share. Curious exactly what you are talking about and how you accomplish it.

 

Deeky

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Yes please do share more, perhaps a few pics too if you happen to get a chance.

I am going to try to make a feruled leader, since they seem not only to last a long time, but their delicate presentation is next to none, so I been told.

 

 

Cheers,

FA85

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