There are no secrets to a 'perfect' floss body, but there are quite a few things to keep in mind for the process of getting close ;-)
First and foremost, the underbody has to be _level_! Without this your ship has already sunk before it has touched the water.
Floss is easily soiled and frayed. Maintain dry, clean and 'soft' hands. Or wear silk glove liners when handling/wrapping floss. (Some of the finest classic salmonfly dressers do, so do not feel you are a wimp. Just wear 'm!)
Floss comes in single and multi-strand. Always wrap single strand, even if that means separating the four strand version.
As you wrap the floss, take care to avoid any twisting of the strands.
Make an even number of layers of floss, Usually two, but you could do more. I.e. start close to the eye of the fly and wrap towards the bend, and then back up. This avoids the lump, which invariably marks the start of a single layer floss approach.
Make sure the floss body is "butted" at the bend of the hook by another material to stop the strands from sliding beyond the point you want the floss section to end.
Floss consists of multiple filaments. This is bad news and good news. The bad news is that the filaments have the tendency to slide over one another. The good thing is that the filaments have the tendency to slide over one another ;-)
Floss bodies need to be wrapped with consistent and _fairly_ firm pressure. When wrapping you try to make the body as even and level as possible. The fine-tuning comes next!
If you wrap the floss too tight, the filaments will not budge and the fine-tuning process (or more precisely the burnishing process) will fail as the individual strands will not budge.
Use a burnishing tool to 'rub' the last imperfections away, to smooth out any minor lumps or level any small depressions. Please note this is a fine-tuning exercise, the very last step. It will not work its magic if the starting point is severely flawed to start with!
Cheers,
Hans
Hans Weilenmann, The Netherlands
http://www.danica.com/flytier
=================================================================
