After 5 plus decades of fly fishing and fly tying, I have decided to turn the video camera on and record some of the mounds of techniques and information I have gained over the years. Since I have traveled the world and taught fly tying to commercial tyers producing patterns for some of the top operations in the country, I am guessing that there are a few tricks that I can teach you. I will start my tying series shortly, with a comprehensive, step-by-step series of segments to teach basics to beginning tyers, and those of you that have always wondered if there was a better was to do something. Follow my beginning series straight through from #1, to where ever I end up taking it, and I can guarantee that you will emerge a better tyer. After the beginning series, I will show more advanced patterns for everyday use, and then some that you may have looked at and wondered "How did they do that". Follow along and I will show you how!
Thanks for this educational video wish I could have seen this when I was a lot younger how true it is i am 76 I’m going to tell my kids and friends to watch this love your videos 👍🙂
I’ve been on the search for a mirror chrome for lures. There are a LOT of “chrome “ paints that end up more like polished aluminum. There is a product from Despaie that is a refill for marker pens. 10 ml used in an airbrush. It gives very, very close to a true mirror chrome. You can easily see reflections in it. As others have noted here, most coatings tend to dull the shine. I am going to try different ones today. Without coatings the chrome quickly wears off on lures The base finish is critical. Unless the base is hard and super smooth you’ll probably not get good results. Helps if the base is very high gloss black. I suspect you’ll never get true mirror chrome on a wood base unless you coat it with epoxy, varnish, etc. before applying the chrome paint
Hi Chris! Great video and thank you! Just to let you know there is a tool that is available from Whitetail Fly Tying Supplies in Chapel Hill, NC. They have a very extensive fly material selection plus the best deer hair I've ever found. The sitter they sell will do full skins and is safe and adjustable for width. Whitetail was started by the famous tyer Chris Helm who has sadly passed on. They are still carrying on the buisiness. Hope this is helpful to anyone wanting to slit their own hides.
Mineral oil and Vaseline are petroleum distilates. They are hydrocarbons, meaning they are comprised of hydrogen and carbon. They are pollutants. Naturally occurring fats found in nuts and plants, like coconut oil, shea butter, etc., are triglycerides. Triglycerides are esters of Coconut oil is primarily composed of triglycerides, which are esters of fatty acids and glycerol. Triglycerides are organic compounds containing carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, but they are not considered hydrocarbons because they also contain oxygen atoms. Hydrocarbons, on the other hand, consist only of carbon and hydrogen atoms. Triglycerides are necessary for life and fish can ingest them safely. If you make your own floatant use a triglyceride like cocoa butter, coconut oil, shea butter, etc. You can mix it with beeswax until you get the consistency you prefer.
Don’t use petroleum distillates in fresh water and protected waters! Vaseline and mineral oil are petroleum distillates! It’s pollution, it kills fish, it creates “slicks” fish can see, and you face a hefty fine and risk seizure of your gear for polluting. If you’re going to use an oil base, then use a plant or nut-based “butter,” not a petroleum product or a petroleum blend.
Bleach is a base not an acid. Baking soda will NOT neutralize a base. It is also a base. You are just stopping the bleach with the clean water. Skip the baking soda and just rinse the feathers in clean water.
That mixing gets poor precision whereas it is really matter for getting a decent hardness. A proper way would be putting a cup on scale and measure the ratio precisely by pouring components with syringe. That would mean you need to find density first. And sometimes you would need to find exact ratio that gives max hardness by making few samples varying components by 5% as 1:1 by volume is not always the best one. And might be important to shake A and B bottles to make them uniform before measure. And waiting longer before demoulding also may be important for max hardness.
How you get the dye off your hands?🤦♀️🤔 Would this dye work on syntetic materials like EP and stuff like that? I was messing around earlier and got leather dye to stick to it using the same method, bur want to try different colors.
Very informative and interesting video. I’m a new subscriber. After watching this video I went to check your video list. Incredible amount of information provided. I’m anxious to watch them being a new tyer. Thank you for sharing these tutorials. Greatly appreciated. God bless.
Diamond -2 is my favorite finish. But I using this finish only for best projects. Other different finish I know too. Flex Coat is very good. Then in my rating probably Rod Dancer finish. And then may be Pro Cote. But, Pro Cote is like a rock. I literally treated it with abrasive the next day and it was very good for that. Pro Cote really strong. I completely forgot about the Japanese Toho finish. For now I'm only saving it for better times. It seems the TOHO finish should be unbeatable.
