Re: [VFB] Handling plastic eyes

[Wes Wada]

Greetings from Oregon,

I have just finished adding plastic eyes to all my body fur minnows for Brad Robinson's upcoming Minnow Swap. Gathering up all the suggestions from this thread: Tony, DonO, Richard Z, Tom P, Jerry G, Joel, Chris R, Thomas, KRDancingfish, and John R ---thank you all-- I tried what turned out to be a really successful solution to my problem.

Here it is: I am attempting to glue solid half-dome plastic eyes (that have a worthless stick-on backing) onto a pattern that uses trimmed Saap Body Fur for the body and head of the fly.

I purchased some low-tack adhesive putty from the office supply store. It was $1.39 for about a 20-year supply. *g* I also had on hand some plastic tubes similar in diameter to a plastic Q-Tip tube, except about twice as long. The extra length comes in handy.

Roll a BB-sized ball of adhesive putty around in your fingers until it is warm, sticky, and ball-shaped. The more you use the putty, the better it works. Stick the ball of putty onto the end of the plastic tube.

Grab a plastic eye off the adhesive backing, and holding it by the edges, press and lightly twist the face of the eye into the putty on the tube.

At this point, if you would rather use super glue gel as Tony Spezio and Don Ordes like, go for it. I had a glue gun on hand and wanted to try working with that tool. Turns out, it worked beautifully.

You want to lightly squeeze out a bead of glue from the gun, then wipe the nozzle clean. A very small pinpoint of glue will appear in the nozzle opening. Just dab that onto the flat side of the plastic eye until the back is covered, then quickly move the glue gun away from the eye. Sometimes a small thread of glue will string out from the eye to the glue gun. Because of its small diameter, it solidifies almost immediately, and you can just pop it free from the plastic eye.

You then have about 30 seconds to place the eye onto your fly. These is where it's really neat. You hold the plastic tube like a pencil with the glued eye on the business end, and literally 'stamp' the eye onto the fly. Because the tube is narrow and you can see the eye fully, it's easy to be very accurate with the placement. When you get the eye where you want it, just twist the tube, and the eye breaks away cleanly from the putty.

Once I got going, I was able to glue an eye about every minute and a half. The glue sets quickly and solidly and there is no need for clamps. Best of all, the glue from the glue gun just doesn't get on your fingers. I put eyes on 20 flies, and not one had a haze on the eye surfaces that resulted from glue.

Your suggestions pointed to something that worked for me. Thanks again.

Wes Wada

"out of my mind, back in five minutes"