Make Your Own Thread Spool Keepers

[letumgo 0]

Here is a simple spool keeper that you can create using hollow plastic tubing used for tube flies and elastic waist band material.

 

 

Materials:

1/8" OD Plastic Tubing (Cut into 1/2" long piece with the ends melted to smooth the edges)

1/4" wide elastic waist band material (3" to 3-1/2" long depending on the type of spool it will be used on)

Tube fly vice

White 6/0 tying thread

 

[billb 0]

Ray:

 

Great idea -- thanks!

 

Bill

[DeerhairTom 0]

I use beads myself. Don't try these with flat mylar tinsel though. Makes the tinsel curl real bad. I also saw these on the market lately and they have heat shrink tubing over the elastic.

 

Thanks for sharing.

 

DeerhairTom

[Al Beatty 0]

Hi Ray,

 

Please email me at address below. I'd like to publish that idea and want to give you credit where credit is certainly due. Take care & ...

 

Tight Lines - Al Beatty

www.btsflyfishing.com

[email protected]

[Steeldrifter 0]

Great idea Ray. Thanks for sharing

[letumgo 0]

Al - I sent you an E-mail.

 

Thanks for the feedback fellas, I hoped you'd like this simple "do-it-yourselfer".

 

DeerhairTom - I think I've though of a solution to that would make this also work well with spooled mylar tinsel. I need to make up couple new ones to test my idea, but I'm hopeful that it will work nicely.

 

EDIT - Keep in mind that these gismos will also work nicely on other spooled materials, such as tippet, backing, reels, spools of fishing line, etc. Just modify the length of the elastic band material to suite your use. I think I'm going to be tying up a number of these for other uses.

[GunnerDonn 0]

It's been a long winter, but hey, the steelies are runnin.

[letumgo 0]

Here is the "new and improved" version of the thread spool keeper. This version has been mylar tinsel friendly in the testing that I have done this evening. I pulled the tinsel through the modified version multiple times and each time it came out straight. For comparison, I pulled the same tinsel though the first version and found that it did put a wicked twist in the mylar tinsel (it looked like a little pig tail or telephone cord). Thanks for pointing this out Tom. This new version causes the end of the tube to lay parallel to the surface of the material that is coming off the spool. The material now goes straight down the tube so it does not get stressed coming off the spool and doesn't get twisted (no stress = no twist).

 

Here are some photos showing how to make the "new and improved" version. I used two thread colors (black and red) in these photos to help illustrate the changes (i.e. - tye in only the front 1/3 of one of the sides so that the tension of the elastic band will always cause the tube to align with the tangent of the spooled material).

 

Have fun!

 

[Harold Ray 0]

Ray,

 

You can use a pony bead and shrink wrap, too. They work great.

 

Ray

[letumgo 0]

Thanks Ray.

[picketpin 0]

Superb idea an and good tip thanks for sharing

T/L Mike