Acrylic Yarn OK?

[Ddrods 0]

I am fairly new to fly tying (primarily build rods) and was wondering if the use of Acrylic yarn like you find at Joann's or Hobby Lobby is o.k. to use. I have a lot of different colors of regular acrylic yarn. What are your thoughts on this?

 

Thanks,

DDRods

[oldtrout58 0]

Yes, very much so. I think UNI yarn (sold for fly tying) is an acrylic.

[Ddrods 0]

Thanks for the quick reply. This helps me a lot. Now I have much more material than I had. I can't believe I waited so long to ask someone. I guess I thought it was a stupid question.

[flytire 0]

You can basically buy use any kind of yarn from the craft store

 

Theres a ton of other craft supplies that can be bought there, not just yarn

[Guest rich mc]

i use alot of acrylic yarn it does take time to get wet . and you need to be carefull that it dries before putting it away as it will hold water more than most.

rich mc

[utyer 0]

Acrylic yarn and many other types of yarn can certianly be used. The first flies made about 200 years ago, used scarlet yarn, for the next 1600 years, most all flies were made with yarn bodies. The practice of dubbing a body wasn't common until the 1600s. Charles Cotton was one of the first to describe the process of dubbing a body.

 

Yarn can be used as it is or chopped up and blended into dubbing. If you want to used it as it comes, its best to seperate out the strands (specially for small flies.)

 

You can make yarn bodies in place of chenille, and dubbing. You can wrap yarn, rib with copper wire, and tease it out a little with a small piece of saw blade, and you can get an effect pretty much just like a dubbed body. I no longer buy chenille for body material, I prefer to use dubbed yarn bodies on all my wooly buggers. Brushed mohair yarns make excellent leech patterns simply by wrapping the yarn up the hook while stroking back the long fibers.

 

Yarn can be made into streamer bodies, and shredded after tying short lenghts and packing the yarn together on the hook (similar to deer hair.) I shred yarn with a "tatting" brush. This is similar to a small dog or cat brush and can is supplied by Montana Fly Company these days. After you shred the yarn, simply trim to shape. "Wool" head sculpins can be made from yarn this way.

 

Yarn I have two sweater boxes full of yarn, and boxes full of dubbing blends made of yarn.

 

The soft acrylic "baby" yarns are good for dry flies (as are many of the other softer acrylics.) Wool yarn makes a good nymph yarn, either by itself, or mixed with fur or flash materials like ICE dub, Gliss-n-glow etc. The colors, and other materials can be blended with the yarn to make and endless variety of shades and textures.

 

One of the best things about yarn is that it can often be found free or at very little cost.

[Ddrods 0]

I really appreciate all the help. If anyone is in Ohio, we are having a rod building/fly tying gathering coming up in November. If anyone is interested, let me know. I will make an announcement on another forum shortly. Thanks again for your help and experienced advice.

[SilverCreek 0]

If you are using the yarn to for dubbing, try the canned air method to mix dubbing. Get a zip lock bag and put in the dubbing mixture. Get some canned compressed air. Works best for fur. I've never tried it for yarn.

 

 

Put the tube spout in the zip lock bag and close the bag around the tube and pulse the air. It will mix the dubbing.

 

This is great for small amounts of dubbing. For huge amounts of dubbing go to a service station that has an air pump for inflating tires and use this method. Air is free in in most gasoline (petrol) stations in the USA.

 

[Ddrods 0]

I am mainly using it as is, for wrapping bodies in place of store bought chenille. I am fishing mainly for panfish and bass with the occasional trout. I tie a lot of foam dry flies, crappie wet flies etc. The yarn idea helps because I had so much of it that it would be a shame if I couldn't use it.

The air mixing is a great idea and I am sure I will have enough to try that also.

[dazzyd 0]

One great pattern that uses yarn is the Aztec.

 

There isn't much info on the web about it but its easy to tie and you can use any colour combination you want to try...

 

http://www.flydressers-guild-herts-branch.co.uk/fly_tying_patterns/fly_tying_pattern_aztec_streamer.html

 

Darrell

[agn54 0]

I have read several places the acrylic yarns or polyester yarns like Aunt Lydia's when combed out are very similar to EP fibers, which have an endless amount of uses

[Ddrods 0]

I haven't tried to find wool yarn locally. I live in a small town in Ohio where there are no Fly Shops at all. There used to be one about 20 miles from here, but it recently closed due to the economy. The closest fly shop around here is in Canton, which is about an hour away from me. This is one of the reasons I try and make due with other materials I find or I order materials online.

[dazzyd 0]

Acrylic wool is available in craft shops, wool shops, walmart etc, no need to buy from fly shop.

 

Darrell

[Ddrods 0]

Acrylic wool is available in craft shops, wool shops, walmart etc, no need to buy from fly shop.

 

Darrell

 

Thanks Darrell, I need to look closer for wool I guess. There are a ton of patterns that use wool and I would like to try at least some of them. It seems like every time I find a pattern I like, I don't have the right materials and end up using something else in it's place. They seem to work o.k. but I would like to have the original material sometimes.

[utyer 0]

Go to Big Lots, they usually have a selection of yarns for a buck to a buck and a half. Mostly they are synthetic, but I do find plenty of yarn there that I can use. For that price, you get 80 yards or more of yarn, the typical fly shop package is usually about3 to 5 yards. Look for yarn with multiple colors on the same spool or bundle. That way, you have 5 or 6 different colors for one price, and many more blends are possible for just one spool of yarn, I can usually make several average size 2X3" bags of blended yarn dubbing from about 2 yards of chopped yarn. The images are NOT my yarns, just some random samples from the Internet.