MeddelandeNick, I'm sure you searched the web using 'dubbings' and found many fly shops with dozens- it seems- of types of dubbings (the Line's End being one). You name it, and they have it in a plastic bag or dispenser pack. It really boils down to a simple proposition- to get what you want (maybe eventually) you have to know what you want (in a general sense).
First of all, what is your purpose for the dubbing? (tying with it, of course!) :o) Really, if your purpose is, like Joyce- a professional tier, and some others here, who get bulk orders for 100's of dozens of flies of a particular style and color, then making your own dubbings from yarns and critters makes much sense, seeing the cost on those bags and dispensers. Plus, one can custom-design the look and color in doing so. (Actually making the dubbings is another whole email.) But if you're a hobby tier, just buying the bulk materials, i.e. skeins of yarns and whole hides and such, will be overkill and give you too much material to store and try to keep tract of. As a hobby tier, your main interest should be to fill small orders, tie your own fishing flies, experiment and design new patterns to your liking, learn the characteristics and applications of diff. dubbings, and keep it easy to manage, organize, and expand. In my tying, I'm interested in only a handful of flies of a certain design for my fishing box. I experiment with a few designs to see what matches my mental image or sketch best, tie a few, fish them, refine them, tie my stock, then move on to other patterns. Bagged dubbings work fine for me and last me a long time, whereas someone like Joyce would go through my entire dubbing stock in a couple of sittings. It's easy for me to add types of dubbings and experiment- just buy, bag, blend, re-bag, sort, and tie. Once you look at the range of natural and synthetic dubbings available, you'll be faced with trying to classify them as to what they're best suited for. Tying methods come into play here, as the finished product is a result of how the dubbing is applied. First, you must decide for a wet or dry application, then if the material is naturally bouyant or will need floatant. Do you then want it fluffy, bushy, well defined, or segmented? With wet flies, it's the same. How well does the material sink (or is it a surface-film pattern)? Does it need movement, flasy highlights, strong segmentation, fringes to simulate gills, or bushiness like a hare's ear? Do you want natural furs or hairs, or synthetics (for wet or dry flies), or a blend. Do you need a straight color, a blend of colors, or a graduation of colors from one end to the other? If you buy a hide, you have the advantage of making many textures of dubbing from it- guard hairs, underhair, belly hair, face hair, etc. Now with all of the above in mind, you can search for dubbings, say Australian 'possum, and ask/find out what it's characteristics are, catagorize it (dry, wet, bushy, clean, etc.), and decide if you want to buy a bag of dubbing to try out or buy the whole hide to make your own dubbing stockpile. Same with a yarn- try some out, then decide to make your own. (Tying methods is also another whole series of emails.) Again, as with the co-op swap, the vfb'ers could set up a dubbing-swap, where each swappers makes a certain amount of a specific dubbing, factor in labor and cost, divide it into bags, then swap. Would get lots of dubbings for the effort of making one. Just an idea- the co-op swap sure worked well. DonO ----- Original Message ----- From: Niclas Runarsson To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, July 21, 2004 5:07 AM Subject: [VFB] Home made dubbing... Hi friends... I've heard many here are making their own dubbing material. Is this synthetic or organic dubbing... or both? I would like to know more about it. Tips, recepies, instructions... everything is appreciated. I'm a total novice in this field, but very interested in trying. /Nick
