Edge Bright?
Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2013 5:41 pm
One material I have seen on other forums and heard mentioned here and there is "edge bright" and I had never really seen it used in soft hackle offerings. Usually it is used as a wrapped body material.
For those that do not know what it is, it is basically some kind of fibre optic flat plastic sheet, translucent to look at on the face, but the edge "glows" a brighter form of the sheet colour- hence "edge bright". I think it is also known as Lazer Wrap?
Anyhow..... I had never seen any for sale here and pestered someone in the States to send some over as he was always posting Salmon and Trout patterns using the stuff and I thought it might be nice to try for cloudy water bigger flies as an "in your face" bright body material. Much pestering later, he sent over two very small samples, one yellow and the other an orange/red.
Once in hand, I had a better idea of what it was and what to look for in places other than fly shops. This is a soft flat version of the shotgun sight light pipes I had asked about elsewhere on the forum and I was sure I had seen similar materials somewhere over here.
After a month or two of looking, I tracked some down. The donor piece (I should have photographed before I destroyed it
) was a small purse/bag designed to carry make-up or toiletries for pre-teens and came from one of those dead stock clearance stores...... and the price was right 
.
The stuff I got was around twice the thickness of the stuff from the States and not good or at least tidy to cut to strips and wrap on smaller hooks, so I came up with another idea for incorporating into smaller soft hackles.
This is kind of a "Birds Nest" pattern. The edge Bright disc was cut out of the sheet with a hole punch and a hole pierced in the middle with a bodkin, the point of the hook pushed through the hole as one would with a bead.
Simple soft hackle with the same kind of disc directly behind the hackle wraps. Not only does this add a little flash to the fly, but will stop the hackle cloaking the fly body, holding it out in a more upright position.
This front on shot shows the difference between the edge of the material above and looking face on into the translucent face of the material.
Smaller hole punches will suit smaller hooks (both #14 above). There could even be a place for multiple disc ties where two or more small discs could be placed in the thorax.
Will they work? Who knows!
But I will give them a swim next season and let you know.
For those that do not know what it is, it is basically some kind of fibre optic flat plastic sheet, translucent to look at on the face, but the edge "glows" a brighter form of the sheet colour- hence "edge bright". I think it is also known as Lazer Wrap?
Anyhow..... I had never seen any for sale here and pestered someone in the States to send some over as he was always posting Salmon and Trout patterns using the stuff and I thought it might be nice to try for cloudy water bigger flies as an "in your face" bright body material. Much pestering later, he sent over two very small samples, one yellow and the other an orange/red.
Once in hand, I had a better idea of what it was and what to look for in places other than fly shops. This is a soft flat version of the shotgun sight light pipes I had asked about elsewhere on the forum and I was sure I had seen similar materials somewhere over here.
After a month or two of looking, I tracked some down. The donor piece (I should have photographed before I destroyed it
) was a small purse/bag designed to carry make-up or toiletries for pre-teens and came from one of those dead stock clearance stores...... and the price was right .The stuff I got was around twice the thickness of the stuff from the States and not good or at least tidy to cut to strips and wrap on smaller hooks, so I came up with another idea for incorporating into smaller soft hackles.
This is kind of a "Birds Nest" pattern. The edge Bright disc was cut out of the sheet with a hole punch and a hole pierced in the middle with a bodkin, the point of the hook pushed through the hole as one would with a bead.
Simple soft hackle with the same kind of disc directly behind the hackle wraps. Not only does this add a little flash to the fly, but will stop the hackle cloaking the fly body, holding it out in a more upright position.
This front on shot shows the difference between the edge of the material above and looking face on into the translucent face of the material.
Smaller hole punches will suit smaller hooks (both #14 above). There could even be a place for multiple disc ties where two or more small discs could be placed in the thorax.
Will they work? Who knows!
But I will give them a swim next season and let you know.
