Tying Quirks.......

[DOUGSDEN]

Good Evening Friends!
I had to laugh at myself while tying the other evening at how odd some of the processes have become in my humble den as of late! Here are just a few of the quirky things that I do whilst tying flies. Please include your quirkies as a response to these!

I suddenly realized that my tying tools and most of the current materials being used were set in roughly a semi-circle around my vice and what's even more weird, they were arranged (quite unknowingly) in the order that I was using them! This from a fellow who is usually not that neat or organized at the tying bench (desk). This has lead to.......

My desire to keep my area at "Williams Minimalist" in terms of the stuff needed to tie the particular pattern at hand. I just don't like alot of clutter around when I am tying. Sometimes, I get in the habit of pulling materials together for the next pattern in my noggin or I do not completely clean up from the last one. William, I mention your "minimalist" approach to tying as I remember at Roscoe #1 and the square table we all occupied at some point in the evenings. You and Ray and Bill and I each had our side and I destinctly remember four different approaches each of us had to tying our goods. Your area was clean and neat and wonderful to view and you only had on the table what you needed to tie effectively. Very cool indeed!

William's Tying Area:


Then there was Rays area! I don't want to say it was messy but he sure had everything he owned right in front of him! It was great! He could roll with the punches and adjust with ease to any changes or circumstances! Extreme opposites for sure! But, oh what magic was made at each of your vices (Bill included as well) in those beautiful patterns!

Ray's Tying Area:


Bill and I were pleasantly somewhere in between as I recall but since then, I have drifted more towards your way (William) of tying and I mean this as a sincere compliment to you and the way you get things accomplished!

Bill's Tying Area:



My desk is still a cluster but it's from other things in life! And this gives way to.....
I have adopted a "tying cloth" which is ever present around the semi-circle. It is made of cotton fabric (an old gray tee-shirt) and is appx. 6" x 8" and it's great for wiping clean waxy fingertips esp. when working with the spinning block in making pre-spun flymph bodies. I also have the habit of wiping off my dubbing needle after each dip into the honey pot of head cement and this cloth is excellent for that task too! It sure beats cleaning off the needle on your pant leg, Ouch!

The last quirk of the evening is.... I have a "bobbin gate" fastened to the stem of my vice to keep the thread/bobbin from twirling out of control at various stages of tying. You four may remember this one from before! I made this pc. myself and installed it years ago because I could not stand the constant spinning of the bobbin while I was trying to do something else at the vice! With a simple touch of the back of my hand, it flips downward and out of the way when needed. Very handy item and I can honestly say that, up to that point, I had never seen anyone else use this in this way! Since then, I have seen vice manufacturers market it as a "bobbin cradle". Mine is not as slick but still gets the job done quite well. And, it's one of the few metal working projects in my career that actually worked!




Please tell us of your unusual or "quirky" tying habits or modifications that help you tie better or faster or in a more satisfying way! We will be anxious to hear!

Thomas A. Edison

[tie2fish]

I think it is fair to assume that the nature of one's tying area is a reflection on the personality and lifestyle of the tier. Since it has always been, with an exception or two along the way, the way of this forum to avoid passing public judgments on the character of others, I will avoid making any snarky comments about the tying quirks of my fellow Flymphers. Let it be sufficient for me to explain that I have recently taken a major step towards cleaning up my own act when it comes to the clutterdness of my tying station.

Instead of simply piling up hen necks and bird skins as I move from one pattern to another, I have taken a vow to return each pelt to its assigned place when I have finished using it. And instead of just tossing any left-over feathers into a common custard dish, I have created several plastic containers designed to store feathers of a certain type and size into which I have (to date, anyhow) dutifully placed my post-pattern leavings. The same effort to better organize my area extends to other components, such as dubbing blends, tail whisks, fur patches, yarn skeins, recipe cards and the like.

However, I still keep probably a dozen types/colors/sizes of threads handy at all times, some of them already mounted in bobbin holders. Also, I have not yet got around to sorting through the 100 or so miscellaneous hooks that have accumulated on little magnetic squares on my tying table, although I have religiously managed to put back any extra hooks left over since I began this new S.O.P. As a result, my tying area now looks like this:



I'm not sure that any of this has made me a better tier or that I feel more positive about myself, but at least I can find things without having to paw through piles of materials when I need something. And, by the way Doug, my "blanky" is an old washcloth and to stop my bobbin from spinning, I just pull it down until it contacts the vise base. This, of course, requires me to re-wrap some thread back onto the spool when I start tying again, so perhaps I should look into a spin stopper device of some sort . But then, fortunately, time is not an issue for me.

[crazy4oldcars]

Doug,
My first real vise was a cheap kit vise. kinda like a Thompson "A" knock-off. It had a small hole drilled thru it about halfway down the shaft. I took some malleable stainless steel wire I had, doubled a piece over and stuck the ends thru the hole far enough to wrap around the shaft. The remainder sticking out was just long enough to touch the limbs on my bobbin holder. When I wasn't using it, I just bent it down out of the way. Cheap and simple. Just like me......
I tend to put my materials away after taking out what I need to tie the few flies of a particular pattern. It tends to keep me from thinking, "OOHHHH! That will look good on here!" It doesn't stop it completely, but it helps.
My tying table is a small, portable - ish one, so it doesn't take much clutter to mess it up. Mine is usally covered with bits of material I am "saving" until I need it again. I have a hard time discarding a perfectly good "fluffy end of a feather" that can be used for another fly. More especially if it is a bright color. "The bream would *kill* a fly tied with that as a <insert fly part here>".
I will try to get a decent pic tonight and post it. And I promise not to clean it up a bit, first.

Kirk

[tjd]

Doug,

Tying quirks? Yes...too many to count!

That's my story...

Tim

[crazy4oldcars]

You didn't ask for it, but your gonna get it anyway, lol!


It's a Creeknuts Tying Table my bride got me for our anniversary a few years ago. All of the mess on top is how it usually looks, altho it does get worse sometimes.

Kirk

[letumgo]

Kirk,

Is that the deluxe tying station offered by Creeknuts? How do you like the Danvice? I tyed on one of those for many years before switching over to an HMH standard vice. I loved the Danvice. The true rotary feature is really nice. Some guys have had problems with flaring of the jaws, but I think it comes from over-tightening. I've tyed thousands of flies on mine, and the jaws are still in good shape. I got into tying tube flies and needed to do a modification to the Danvice. I drilled a small hole in the head of the vice, so mandrels could extend back into the body of the vice.




IMHO, the Danvice an excellent vice and a good value.

I like the light. I need lots of light when I am tying, due to my poor eyesight. I have been looking at getting one of the LED magnifying lamps for additional light. I currently have high intensity Daylight bulbs on each side of my tying area, plus lighting under the top edge of the desk (lights my hook/dubbing boxes/tools).

Doug,

My travel tying kit has gotten much more compact. Generally I carry my three ring binder which organizes my tying materials, along with my vice, and thread/wire organizer. The Roscoe Flymph trip was my first time traveling with my fly tying gear. I quickly learned to scale things back for road trips and tying events. I still bring too much stuff, but I've scaled things back significantly from what you saw at Roscoe. Chalk it up to youthful enthusiasm (read inexperience). I was just so excited to show you guys all my soft hackle stuff. (It did not help matters I drove myself and could fit it all into my car. I just kept stuffing more things in, until the car was full. "Oh wait, I can fit a couple books into this spot..." ).

Packing for the Yellowstone trip (two bag limit) was a whole different ballgame. Minimalistic was the way to go. Ironically, Mr. Anderson and I were exact opposites for the Yellowstone adventure. I think he packed for two trips...

[crazy4oldcars]

Ray,
It's the Dix tying table. Mark Hanni was kind enough to modify his design a bit to accommodate the Danvise. He made the bar on the front deeper. the clamp has a 1 1/8" throat on it.
I have further modified it by cutting off all of the little flimsy posts and replacing them with longer 3/16" dowels on the 2 back shelves. The very long dowels on each side are just stuck in tool holder holes. I wish now that I had made the shelf dowels long enough to hold 3 spools each, but that probably wouldn't be as practical as it sounds.
The light is a 24 bulb BBQ light from Amazon for about $35. I didn't want something I would constantly have to unplug when I put away my table. I can get a full days tying out of a single set of AAA batteries.
I really like my Danvise. In a previous life, I designed fire fighting nozzles. One of the last ones I worked on was a glass-reinforced nylon 6 version that weighed 6 pounds, vs 18 lbs for aluminum and almost 30 lbs for brass. I know what plastic is capable of withstanding, and it's perfect in this application. I don't use the rotary on it near as much as I should, but that's just habit, lol. I recently replaced the jaws after about 5 years of use. I can't blame it in quality of workmanship. It just took me a while to realize what I was doing to the jaws. I wasn't having trouble with them holding hooks, I wanted to start fresh.
Drilled for a tube set up, huh? Interesting. And I have a spare set of jaws....

My travel kit consists of the Cabela's Deluxe tying kit, and a snap lid plastic shoe box full of materials. Some of my skins, like the partridge and the pheasant, I split in half so I could take some with me. The kit usually stays in our travel trailer for use on fishing expeditions.

Kirk

[Eric Peper]

Dunno if this all qualifies as quirks, but it does make stuff convenient. The vise base is a slab of granite from thegranitefly.com. I have two: one for home here in TX and one at our cabin in Idaho. Great stuff. The vise will NOT move. And, I think they're kinda neat looking. I've modified both with a white pill bottle cap velcroed (izzat a word?) to the granite for use as a hook container. The wine corks are also attached with velcro and hold dubbing needles, razor blades, anything that's pointy and needed NOW including freshly tied flies. The pic is shot looking through the magnifier that is integrated into my Ott Light. The light has allowed me to tie without glasses for the first time in about 20 years, and the flies tied using the magnifier are a lot neater than what I was tying without it. Oh, those two little silver things on top of the desk are telescoping holders for very strong magnets -- absolutely priceless for anyone who drops scissors, pliers, tweezers, hooks, etc. And they are a buck at The Dollar Store.



Eric

[letumgo]

Eric - The stone base is really neat. Old wine corks can be used for many purposes around the tying area (hook holders, bodkin handles, etc).

Which version of Ott light is that? Is that one of the freestanding floor models? What power magnification does it provide?

Great tip with the extendable magnet wands. That falls in the "Why didn't I think of that?" category.

[crazy4oldcars]

I had a round fluorescent gooseneck light that had a magnifying glass in it. I tried tying thru it, but i couldn't get both eyes to focus thru it at the same time. It made me dizzy.

Eric,
That base is pretty. I wish I had room for something like that. Maybe when my boys (finally) leave home, lol.

Kirk