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Fly Tying
longears

Tying Gadgets or How to make life easier

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Awesome handle technique, Carver! Pure genious! Sounds very doable. Nice grip you designed, too. Looks like you pull some lunkers out with that one!

 

Thanks, longears. The eyeglass case is a good grab & go item that will carry all the basic tools and then some. I use the Xacto handle as a mini-vise on the water too. I posted that in another thread.

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I use styrofoam cups - especially used Dunkin Donuts coffee cups! - as mini garbage cans and to hold the completed flies by sticking them around the rim. This is especially convenient to collect flies and then apply head cement to the completed group. You can just pick up the cup and rotate it to bring the next fly in to view.

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I also save my wine corks to put streamers on as I complete them. Makes it easy to cement the heads at the same time, so you don't get a headache or other reaction from the fumes while tying.

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This is my first post here. Some of the ideas I've seen here are fantastic

Here's are my offerings:

Want bees wax really cheap? Buy one of those wax rings they use for setting toilets. 97 cents in Walmart. I also found some cork squares in Target. I glued some onto my bench. I stick my bobbin, xacto blade in the cork. I also took a couple of sheets and doubled them up to hold my streamers and bucktails (that's all I tie for now, just getting started).

Thanks,

dc

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Created my own fly stages with a dowel from Home Depot and thick white foam from Micheals. Drill the foam for the dowel and glue in the stage style you like.

 

For the base, scrap wood drilled for the dowel. :)

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Dubbin loops second job, holding hairs back during the whip finish before trimming.

 

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Tying Desk and computer desk all one and the same.

I used hot glue to attach but velcro will make it disappear

when not in use. I just didn't have any around.

 

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Found lots of stuff in fabric stores. Try using a seam ripper for cutting thread and teasing dubbing out. About $2.

 

Use a small foam sheet (6"x8") to hook finished flies in. Clip a small bulldog clip on the edge and you can hang it up.

 

I have a small piece of magnetic sheet about 4"x4" with the corner under my vise clamp. Great for keeping hooks handy for the next fly.

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Oh, yeah - I found a white birch branch in my wanderings (on the ground) about 3" in diameter. Cut it into 3" lengths on the table saw and drilled some 1/4" holes in one end. One holds my Scissors, whip finisher,dubbing tool, and rotary hackle pliers. The other is for holding 5 threaded bobbins.

The wife even said she never new I was an artsy-craftsy guy.

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I always have left over epoxy from rod building and so I started to look for a use for it. I wanted a better way of cutting rabbit hide strips so I took 6 sugeons scalpals, used popsicle sticks for spacers and epoxied them together. it worked so well that I kept building it up until I had a smooth hard plastic handle. The tool works so great I made another with four blades for cutting foam strips!

 

I am learing to marbalize epoxy with color and so plan on jazzing it up a bit more in the furture.

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Sorry, but I don't know how to post digital pictures. I do have a digital camera and would be willing to do so if someone told me how. I tried going into help and searching but nothing came up for picture.

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When posting, use the 'send reply' rather than the fast reply. Type your text, and then below that there is a 'browse' button and 'add attachment' button. Use the browse button to find the file you want, then click add attachment. If you want, you can click 'put in message' or whatever the button says, but it will still show up if you don't.

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Thank you for your assistance with the photo! Here is the cutter I made for rabbit skins. When cutting remember to keep the skin streched taunt and not to ecut to the end of the skin, leave about 1/2 " from the end to make it easy to cut additional strips. by using a rounded scapel blade I don't have to worry about poking myself inadvertantly and it still works great to stick directly into the hide for the first cut. I have also used it on other light skins with good results

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