Rene, I hope it’s a good job that keeps you on the go. Lots of $$$$.
I don’t use the Wing Things to attach the wings to the hook, although I actually could if needed. Easiest thing is to list the things I do with them, which will all be in the Wing Things 2.0 extension of the article. And I’ll probably do a You-tube video. I’ll try to list them in order. (I’ll be using this as the outline for Ver 2.0 Wing Things on my website with lots more photos.) 1. Group bulk feathers left and right*, (off of one cape) trimmed and set to length, size, color, webbieness, etc. So if I want big presentation streamers I group all the big feathers at the back of the cape, trim the downy butt ends and insert as many will fit in the wing thing. I have bigger straws to accommodate large groups of thick feathers. For smaller fishing flies, I start in the middle of the cape. Depending on whether I’m tying a bunch or similar patterns for a swap or designing individual flies, this grouping of large quantities of L/R hackles is useful. Sometimes I use the tubes, and sometimes I have extras stored in small plastic pockets, especially when I’m designing. (Photos in WT 2.0) *2. I have many necks that dried ‘weird’ and don’t have equal rights and lefts (especially old Chinese capes). Also, the modern drying techniques for bagging actually set a reverse curve (or even a twist) in the feathers from the natural, so what you think is a left is actually a right. The vendor hot dying & drying process re-sets the curves, so another hot water bath will reset the curves the way you want them- regardless of L/R bends, in a Wing Thing. So set an equal number of L/R feathers in the Wing Thing (ignore curves & twists) and run it through hot water and lay the whole group on a blotter with the shape you want to let it dry. This will also expose non-color-fast dyes used, and you can see from my blotter in the photos. When they dry you will have equal #s of properly curved rights and lefts OR all straight if that’s what you need. For presentation flies, I always use a slight graceful curve. The wing will dry dense, still looking wet, but combing it out with a small brush will restore the dry bulk of the wing. Note that this so far is for a single bulk color. Once the finished multi-wing wing is built, or the fly is finished, another dredge through the hot water helps to control unruly feathers, along with some other techniques I’ll mention. Sometimes I’ll be able to wait until the fly is finished before I dredge it. Depends on how the feathers are cooperating. 3. For grouping/holding/controlling feathers while designing. The article explains this pretty well, for both wings and cheeks. But if the feathers aren’t cooperating, there’s more you can do. 4. Once I have my wing ‘dead to rights’, I tie the tips together with about 6-10 tight wraps, no knot or glue, before inserting into the WTs. This keeps the wing feathers from sliding back and forth as I insert cheek groups or individual feathers. I do this cheek-matching many times and the thread knot controls my wing layering. If I want to change the layering, the thread slides right off and I can re-design the wing. 5. Once I have the wing-set I want, or if I have a lot of wing feathers that may try to rotate around as I tie the group down, I’ll drop in some head cement into the back end of the Wing Thing tube and watch it penetrate into the wing feather tips just a little, catching some barbs, before setting it on a pin. Don’t worry if you over-do it a little, the cheeks cover the glue area. Once it dries, pull it out and trim the front tips to a short wedge so there’s no hump in the head when you tie it down. Re-insert or tie down onto the hook.** If you are having a hard time keeping the wing feathers stable while gluing, use a reverse tweezers to grab the fly at the cheek area to flatten it out while drying. (will have photos) **I like to tie the belly fibers before tying the wing- helps position the wing better with a larger base. To Answer Rene’s question about using the wing things to attach the wing to the hook, If you didn’t use glue, you could tie the loaded wing-ting down real tight, pull off the wing thing, trim the butt ends, and finish tying the head. Pre-gluing would alleviate this. (This is also a good technique for tying ‘fishing streamers’ as it keeps inside feathers from being jerked out of the head.) 6. Staging assembly-line groups for commercial tying. Use Wing Things to create an assembly line of processes, rather than one fly start to finish. Build all your wings- then pick up the capes & unclutter. Build all your cheeks- unclutter. Set-up the final tie assembly and drying racks without all the capes and cheek feathers in the way. I always have a large group of hooks pre-tied and on a card, but I inevitably tie more as I’m designing. Commercial tiers would want to do this also. I would estimate that commercial tying time could be cut in half using the Wing Things and an assembly line process. For show-fly designing, time is not a factor, just efficiency and tying space. I always keep everything handy, though. A commercial tier could do it both ways and compare the time for like a 100 flies. Don’t count the time to build the pin-holders, since you will re-use them over and over. Commercial tying may be one instance where the Wing Things could be used to tie the wings as a group to the hooks. 7. Often I have a completed fly with wing in the vise except for the cheeks. Nothing I have pre-tied works for me. So I spread out all of the different cheek feather choicess and go to work with a wing thing pushed over the head of the hook. This is where the split on the Wing Thing is also helpful. The WT slides on enough to cover the start of the wing (or cut deeper), so I have a little opening on each side to slide in a mix and match cheek with JC eyes or spears to ‘take a look’- without tying them down. If I like, but want to experiment, I’ll take a photo to save the design. Than I can try something a little different or totally different, depending on how the wing looks. Once I Ihave what I want, I remove the WT and tie the cheeks down carefully. Once I’m done tying, I take my sharp-tip reverse tweezers and drage the whole fly though hot water. This trains the wing, cheek, and belly hairs into a minnow shape and relaxes any ‘wild hairs’. Once dry, I carefully comb out to shape and photo for records. I leave all of my finished flies on a styrofoam block next to my bench, so I can design new flys based on the features I like best on previous flies. My designs evolve over time, but a new set of feathers, cheeks, etc. re-starts the process. A new theme, like birds or Matlache Island colors, etc. re-starts the process. There’s a lot here verbally, but a video would show it short and sweet. To start, I will continue the article and add more photos of each of these steps. I’ve had both hobby-tiers and commercial tiers thank me for this simple and CHEAP tying technique. You can get straws from any gas station coffee stand, or buy round coffee stirrers by the carton. My next thing is to learn framing and fly mounting in order to create themed streamer-fly plates. Hope this helps. If anything is unclear, fire away and I will answer and upgrade Wing Things 2.0. DonO From: [email protected] Sent: Sunday, March 05, 2017 6:15 AM To: [email protected] Subject: AW: [VFB] RE-POST: New FOTD Matlacha Island Theme Streamers- Finals Hi Don, thanks. Sorry, I'm late answering, but my current project asks for a lot of travel and I seldom sit at my PC. For the Wing-Thing: I do not see how you use them to attach the wings. Or are you using them for the design phase only? Streamer are really a thing with 2 faces, large fish and a great option, just to make nice and decorative items. Warm regards Rene -----Original-Nachricht----- -- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "VFB Mail" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/vfb-mail?hl=en VFB Mail is sponsored by Line's End Inc at http://www.linesend.com --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "VFB Mail" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
