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DarrellP

what repurposed items do you tie with

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Someone asked about my strip cutter. This is a homemade divise, and I have not used it yet for cutting zonker strips. As it is setup here, there are 5 blades which will then cut 4 strips. To make a zonker strip cutter use 2 or 3 washers or a single nut between the blades. The blades come from Home Depot or Lowes and are 4" long.

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In a recent estate I bought, the former fly tier had a can of hair spray with his fly tying stuff. He also had some duck and goose quills he had sprayed with some sort of fixative. Putting two and two together I tried spraying some feathers with the hair spray and it works very well. It works better than the other things I had tried like Flex coat and head cement.

 

Is this a thing? Has any one else tried it?

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spraying wing quill feathers with some type of fixative is an old practice to supposedly hold the fibers together. after a couple of fish the wing come apart

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spraying wing quill feathers with some type of fixative is an old practice to supposedly hold the fibers together. after a couple of fish the wing come apart

I think the idea behind that is just holding fibers together together while tying. It doesn't matter if they come apart later.

 

Wings so fixed can put a twist in a tippet, but some people like to fix feathers used in wing cases, where it twisting isn't a problem.

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Thanks, Norm and Bob, I understand the use of fixative, I was more interested in if anybody used hair spray and if they thought it was a good substitute. It's possible I'm overthinking it.

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I buy inexpensive "Cosplay" wigs on eBay for streamer hair, salt water mainly. The wigs come in literally every color under the sun including fluorescents and glow in the dark. They are cheep, $10.00-$14.00 each and one wig will make hundreds of flies.

Mark, in the lower 48 you can find/ buy them at dollar tree,.... for a dollar

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I buy inexpensive "Cosplay" wigs on eBay for streamer hair, salt water mainly. The wigs come in literally every color under the sun including fluorescents and glow in the dark. They are cheep, $10.00-$14.00 each and one wig will make hundreds of flies.

Mark, in the lower 48 you can find/ buy them at dollar tree,.... for a dollar

 

 

No, mine are better. smile.png smile.png smile.png. No, I'm sure most of my cost was for the shipping to Alaska.

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I've read of hair spray used as fixative and also of tyers that used hairspray on display flies. Someone talked about wetting marabou with hairspray and brushing it with a stiff tooth brush resulting in a heron substitute.

I keep a can of the stuff in every vehicle in summer, it is the single best chigger killer and anti itch I've ever used.

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For what it's worth I just got a new iPhone and the glossy cellophane that it came wrapped in makes really nice shell bodies. The stuff is definitely more difficult to tie with than thin skin but it's got a bright reflective quality to it. The photo doesn't really capture the effect.

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