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bkmasters

Rabbit Zonkers

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Hello everyone new to the forum.  I’m thinking about buying  whole rabbit hides and making my own zonkers.  I have a couple of questions.  1.  Was wondering how the bar was put on the barred zonkers?  2.  Is the barring paint or dye?

Thanks everyone!!!

 

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I'm guessing it's dye; I think paint would make the hairs stick together and dry hard, as if they'd been glued. 

I've bought whole hides and cut them into strips myself before, and in my experience any savings in cost is not worth the extra trouble. You can't just go at it with scissors and hack away, or you'll lose a LOT of hair off of each strip. The best way I've found to do it is to use a double edge razor blade and cut the strips from the back side (opposite the hair side). Don't cut all the way through; just "score" the hide and then pull the strip off the hide. If you cut all the way through, you're going to cut the tips off of many (if not most) of the hairs attached to each strip, which ruins their looks and their effectiveness.

Best of luck!

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I hope Jim Smith is still monitoring the forum. He had a method of making a tool to cut zonker strips from double edged razor blades sandwiched between business card magnets. The fur pelt was stretched and held using a needle point ring. 

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Most commercially offered pre-stripped rabbit has never worked for me since I'm a saltwater tyer.   Here's what I came up with to do my own (a bit wider than most freshwater strips - and I prefer rabbit with a bit thicker skin than what's used for freshwater strips....

As noted above I also use double edged razor blades (these are much thinner than single edged blades so they cut very cleanly) but I first break each one in half length-wise using a small pair of nippers then flexing the blades back and forth until they crack and only use one half at a time....  My next step uses only a standard clipboard to hold the skin fur side down.  At first I carefully marked the each skin with a ruler and a fine Sharpie pen to provide lines to cut along - but I soon learned to free- hand it... The trick to keep from cutting fur??  All you have to do is pull the skin tight before cutting and slightly elevate it off of the clipboard.  With a brand new blades (the moment a blade starts to dull in the slightest - discard it - they're cheap enough...) I slice through the skin completely and since the fur isn't compressed onto the clipboard it flexes away from the blade as you cut the skin... Give it a try and you'll be pleasantly surprised how well it works.... and you won't lose a bit of the hair while stripping... Here's a pic or two of some of the bugs I do using rabbit (both for the tail and at times palmered, for the body as well... ).

emap5Wm.jpg

the RazorCut Mullet

Hook:         Mustad 34007, 3/0

Thread:      Danville's flat waxed nylon color of choice

Tail:            very sparse bucktail just forward of hook bend with pearl Flashabou over, then a single bleached white rabbit strip over all 

Body:          Bleached white deer belly hair, spun and clipped - then carefully razored into shape with wire weedguard

Eyes:           large holo eyes glued in place using Fletch-tite glue

Finish:         Flex- seal over all the deer hair (after coloring the back with a Sharpie or a Prismacolor marker...)

 

2ypZVkw.jpg

Swamp Rabbit tarpon flies, size 3/0

 

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Lots of info on how to cut the strips, but I think his question was the barred strips are dyed.

 

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Permanent markers and a ruler, but they do fade.  A friend on another board did a youtube video on markers and it takes some time to watch it but it's really good!! 

 

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