wire and silk brushes

[gingerdun]

Rurard,
This is so interesting. How do you secure the two loose ends of the wire at the other end of the block?
Lance

[Ruard]

Rurard,
This is so interesting. How do you secure the two loose ends of the wire at the other end of the block?
Lance

Hi Lance,

First I take the thread (red copper wire) through the split in the end of the block, then around the nail in the end and back through the split and the round the nail on the upside of the block. Most of the time it is secure now. The white paper I never use it is only for the picture so you can see the red thread better.



The long end of the thread goes in the split on the other side of the block, it is the side that is most close to me, to keep it straight when i put the dubbing on top of the thread ( no dubbing in these pictures)




Then the thread goes over the dubbing to the other side and also around the two nails. The handle goes into the loop and I can turn a dubbingbrush.



Greeting

[hankaye]

Ruard, Howdy;

When I used to work on aircraft, and we had to twist
wire to hold nuts and bolts from vibrating apart, we would use the
pair of pliers that I linked to in an eariler post in this conversation.
I don't know if you have tried this or not but maybe if you were to
simply loop the wire around the nail away from you then twist it around
the hook in the drimmel it could save you alot of wire (over a time).
Only a suggestion...

hank

[gingerdun]

Ruard,
Thanks for taking the trouble to explain this to me. Now I understand.
Later this week, if time allows, I will try to post photographs of the technique I'm using for comparison.
It is not an improvement on your method, just a little different, almost identical to spinning with silk.
The only difference for me when using wire instead of silk is that after laying the dubbing on the strand of wire, I grasp the wire ends with the Radio Shack wire clamp, and rotate it in my fingers to make the brush.

Lance

[gingerdun]

Ruard,

Here is what I did last night, using a nice maple spinning block made by William Anderson.
As I said earlier, the only thing that is different from spinning on silk is using the wire clamp.
It is impossible to spin the wire in the fingers, but easy to rotate the tubular clamp.

[Ruard]

Hi Lance,

Well done, and thank you for the pics. I like the brush on the bottom row most, because the dubbing is so evenly spread.


Greeting

[gingerdun]

Thanks Ruard.
Yes, that top one is a bit irregular.
I tried to get some taper, which I succeeded at better with the bottom one.
The skimpy one in the middle could just serve as a thorax, I suppose.

How do you decide when to use wire, and when to use silk?
What is the particular advantage of using wire?

Lance

[William Anderson]

This entire subject really makes perfect sense to me. I'll be posting a few shots of a recent outing and the relationship to designing flies to match certain types of seams and riffles and fly behavior moreso than matching insects or hatch stages. These wire-dubbed bodies would certainly find a row or two in my box and I should take this method more serious. Stay tuned for future exploration.

Ray has a special dubbing block with a unique spinner attached just for this kind of thing. If he can manage at some point maybe he'll show us the devise.

Lance, these pics are fantastic. That image of the wire and dubbing is exceptional. This entire thread is very enlightening, though I know we've seen these bodies many times in different forms. It just takes a little longer for some things to register. I manage some how.

Ruard, thanks for such a brilliant thread and all the information. This goes down as a pivotal thread for me. Thanks so much.

w

[Ruard]

How do you decide when to use wire, and when to use silk?
What is the particular advantage of using wire?

Lance

I do not know yet what the advantage is of wire. I think that when wet, there is a two tone body, not by adding an extra rib but by the way I make the body. I did make a card with brushes of silk and soon I will tie some flies with them.

Wire-bodies give naturally also some extra weight in the fly.


greeting

[Ruard]

Thank you William, much appreciated.

Here are some other flies with wire brushes. The dubbing is 50% opossum dark and 50% olive hare.

The hook is the Kamasan B175 # 12 (I did make the eye straight) The hackle is a dark mottled hen saddle and the thread a yellow sheer 14/100



Olive and red wire.



Olive and green wire



Olive and blue wire

Greeting