Utilizing Dubbing Brushes

[Ruard]

I make my dubbing brushes long enough to make at least one body on a hook 12 or even 10. With smaller hooks I can make two flies of one dubbing brush. This is only possible if I make the brush with copperwire. With silk it is already difficult enough to make one fly with one brush.

I spread the dubbing as evenly as I can on the first thread. And also as thin as I can. Sometimes I make a hair hackle brush and the I lay down the hairs on one side of the thread.


About turning: If I use copperwire I turn the brush with my litle ellectric drill and when the wire breaks the brush is good.


greeting

[chase creek]

CB -
"I'm digging Ray's block design--I'm assuming the next iteration will have a Vernier scale? "

Ray may cancel my ticket for letting this out of the bag, but I understand he is working on a diesel powered, water cooled dubbing block, available in a stainless steel or light weight titanium version.

[William Anderson]

GD, have you come across the transition when Pete decided the knee technique used by Leisenring was no longer his preference and went to using a dubbing block? I understand he had a little collection of them. At some point he must have found the block more to his liking, and maybe that shows as his flies in some cases are discernible from Jim's. Is there a mention of this in his writings? Did he find the knee process antiquated or just prefer the results of the dubbing block? Just curious. Both methods have their benefits and unique results. Thanks for any insight you care to offer.

w

[letumgo]

Rodger - I had to switch to the metal dubbing blocks, because the friction caused by forming the dubbing brushes kept setting the wooden ones on fire.

(twisted humor - pun intended)

[gingerdun]

GD, have you come across the transition when Pete decided the knee technique used by Leisenring was no longer his preference and went to using a dubbing block? I understand he had a little collection of them. At some point he must have found the block more to his liking, and maybe that shows as his flies in some cases are discernible from Jim's. Is there a mention of this in his writings? Did he find the knee process antiquated or just prefer the results of the dubbing block? Just curious. Both methods have their benefits and unique results. Thanks for any insight you care to offer.

w

William, sorry to say that I have no specifics. Dick Clark who invented the block method was a good friend and fishing partner of both Jim L. and Pete. So Pete would have known about the block from the beginning. Pete began making blocks to give away to fly tiers in the late 1960s or early 1970s. The Anglers' Club of New York published the illustrated article about the spinning block in the Oct. 1968 issue of the bulletin, after Clark's death. I am not aware of any mention of the spinning block in print prior to that. Because the block can go on the table, the ergonomics are more comfortable than working on the knee. Pete was not aware of any downside to working with the block, and he would never have criticized anybody who chose to work on the knee instead of the block.

In his FLY-FISHER'S CRAFT (2006, p. 102), Darrell Martin shows a modified version of the Clark spinning block with a plastic disk on the side similar to Ray's. (Does he owe you a royalty, Ray?)



That down-turned tack on the back of the block is a poor design, for it makes the removal of the silk loop much more difficult than the 30-degree angle pin on Pete's block.

Lance

[Old Hat]

If I'm not mistaken that downturned tack is flipped up when the loop is finished making the loop very easy to remove.

[gingerdun]

Old Hat,
That makes sense. Thanks for setting me straight.
Lance

[Kelly L.]

Rodger - I had to switch to the metal dubbing blocks, because the friction caused by forming the dubbing brushes kept setting the wooden ones on fire.

(twisted humor - pun intended)

That was unexpected, and hilarious!

[wayneb]

Good information all!

One thing I found with the dubbing block is definetly less is more as far as dubbing amounts. My first attempts produced really good results(my hot spot pattern for the recent swap was constructed this way)but my first spun bodies could tie two to three size 12 bodies each!

I really like the technique Ray displayed with the matt board, willl have to give it a try.

Wayneb