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jhammer

Those heads....

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Do any of the veteran fly tyers have any tips or tricks for building good, nice, and clean heads on flies? I've been tying for around 10 years, but I still mess up the heads once in a while. Sometimes, I bunch everything together, or go a little too far down the hook eye. Does this happen to some other experienced folks too?

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The best advise I can give you is to stop tying one hook eye short of the eye. This gives you plenty of room to finish the fly.

 

Nobody gets them perfect all the time...

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Yup that would be my suggestion as well. Your proportions on your flies should factor this in. Also start your whip finish from the front of the eye, with flat thread, and wrap back with edge to edge wraps. If you have butts of materials near the eye, angle your whip finish so the first wraps of thread approach under the materials and parallel to the shank, so that you push them back as you build your head.

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use only as many wraps needed to hold the last material on. 3-4 wrap whip finish or 2-3 half hitches is plenty. 65 wraps of thread is not needed!

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Yup that would be my suggestion as well. Your proportions on your flies should factor this in. Also start your whip finish from the front of the eye, with flat thread, and wrap back with edge to edge wraps.

 

 

got to disagree on that one- whip finish should always try to go back to front. If you go front to back, the knot forms with a single thread perpendicular to the wraps sitting OVER the wraps which is a serious weak point and can look bad. If done back to front, the perpendicular thread is UNDER the wraps, invisible and strong. You should not ever have to try to correct a weird looking head with your final finish knot. Later tonight if I have time I will try to take a few pics to show what I mean.

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this is all good advice but a good head starts at the beginning of the fly .

when you first attach the thread leave a blank space behind the eye and dont get near that space until your ready to make your head.

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As you're tying, you put a twist in your thread for every wrap. When you're ready to tie off the head, be sure as stated above to get your thread flat; I do that by letting the bobbin untwist and once it starts, usually give it a little spin in that direction to help it out.

I too as JSzymczyk said, start the whip finish at the back of the head and wrap towards the eye.

 

Kirk

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Yup that would be my suggestion as well. Your proportions on your flies should factor this in. Also start your whip finish from the front of the eye, with flat thread, and wrap back with edge to edge wraps.

 

 

got to disagree on that one- whip finish should always try to go back to front. If you go front to back, the knot forms with a single thread perpendicular to the wraps sitting OVER the wraps which is a serious weak point and can look bad. If done back to front, the perpendicular thread is UNDER the wraps, invisible and strong. You should not ever have to try to correct a weird looking head with your final finish knot. Later tonight if I have time I will try to take a few pics to show what I mean.

 

Considering most people use head cement, why would that matter?

 

I dont use head cement and have never had a head fail, mind you I typically do put another whip finish forward as you said.

 

I didnt say anything about "fixing" a weird head with a whip finish. I was talking about wrapping over small stray fibers with a whip...which again isnt really a problem since most people glue their fly up anyway, or if you just do a double whip.

 

I dont worry about heads looking that great on fishing flies, as long as they are proportional. I stopping worrying when I stopped trying to catch fishermen with fishing flies....thats what my salmon flies are for. Most of the vintage flies I have seen have heads that would be considered horrible by today's standards, but I am sure they caught fish...and they do.

 

I maybe biased since I dont try to make indestructible flies. After a fly has hooked a few fish I retire it, which is long before it would start falling apart.

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Considering most people use head cement, why would that matter?

 

I dont use head cement and have never had a head fail, mind you I typically do put another whip finish forward as you said.

 

I didnt say anything about "fixing" a weird head with a whip finish. I was talking about wrapping over small stray fibers with a whip...which again isnt really a problem since most people glue their fly up anyway, or if you just do a double whip.

 

I dont worry about heads looking that great on fishing flies, as long as they are proportional. I stopping worrying when I stopped trying to catch fishermen with fishing flies....thats what my salmon flies are for. Most of the vintage flies I have seen have heads that would be considered horrible by today's standards, but I am sure they caught fish...and they do.

 

I maybe biased since I dont try to make indestructible flies. After a fly has hooked a few fish I retire it, which is long before it would start falling apart.

 

 

It must be a personality thing. I agree about the heads of a lot of "classic" flies tied by the "masters" themselves- some of the heads look terrible compared to what we strive for today.

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