Wrapping Lead Wire

[stony 0]

How do you keep the material from spinning around the hook when you put lead wire on it?

 

I have a beadhead on it and am wrapping the lead around the hook and pushing the end into the bead, then wrapping the material around. After it has dried though, I can spin the material.

[jlsmithii 0]

little confused. are you securing the lead to the hook with tying thread?

[Inconnu 0]

I'm not sure either, but what I usually do is to wrap a thread underbody on, lay in some head cement, then wrap my lead onto the shank. When I am done and the ends are trimmed I wrap some thread over the lead and give it another shot of head cement, then let it dry.

[stony 0]

Ahah, that's what I need to do. I have been wrapping the lead on directly to the hook instead of on the thread wrap.

 

Makes sense now. Thanks.

[Inconnu 0]

Something else that may help, depending on the pattern, is to wrap thread to create a bevelled surface up to the lead wire. It gets rid of that sudden change in diameter when you are wrapping a material over the wire.

[Ephemerella 0]

Not only wrap the hook shank first, after wrapping the lead-free wire (lead is bad for loons and other living creatures... :crying: ) wrap the thread forward and backward over the wire. If you wrap the wire in the reverse direction (counter-clockwise) the thread wound clockwise will bind it down. Then a half a drop of zap-a-gap applied with a toothpick. That wire isn't going enywhere. Also like Iconnu said, build up a taper in front of and after the wire for a smooth body (depending on the fly of course...)

Tight wraps and tight lines,

-E

[letumgo 0]

stony - I learned a really neat way of wrapping lead wire on the hook this summer with the true rotary feature of my DanVise. The method goes like this:

 

Poke the end of the piece of lead wire you want to wrap through the eye of the hook (it should extend between 1/8" to 1/4" beyond the end of the hook) and then rotate the head of the vice. As the hook rotates, the lead wire will be wrapped onto the hook shank in nice tight closely spaced turns. Once you have the desired numbers of wraps, simply grab the lead wire close to the hook shank and pull firmly. The lead wire will break cleany against the hook shank. Then use your thumbnail to break/cut the end of the wire which goes through the eye of the hook. Once you get the hang of this method, you should be able to weight a hook in a matter 10 to 15 seconds.

 

After the hook shank is weighted, attach the thread and run it back and forth across the wire a couple times to hold it in place.

 

This method also allows the weight to be repositioned after they are added to the hook (assuming you have not added a thread foundation under the wire). Once the wire is were you want it, just wrap over it with thread to hold it in place.

 

[madkasel 0]

Not only wrap the hook shank first, after wrapping the lead-free wire (lead is bad for loons and other living creatures... :crying: )

 

I was paranoid about working with the lead wire I'd bought, and had my kid washing his hands right after he'd use it himself.... and then he read the spool and saw that it isn't lead!

 

Somehow, on accident, I bought the good non-lead stuff!