Thank you Dan. I'm seldom humble. I fake it all the time. But in reality me as humble is, well, deceptive at best. :=)) Perhaps this should be moved to a separate thread. I didn't want to highjack the original Bing Lempke topic.
I learned the needle body technique from a late 1980s fly tying article in Rod and Reel written by Chauncy Lively and John Betts. They used it for making damsel fly bodies with blue-colored latex balloons (if I remember correctly).
I buy beeding needles by the pack, from #10 -- #13.
#15 beading needles are available too, but hard to find and hard to use. They are too flexible for me.
I put the needle in the vise horizontally and immediately wrap a spot on the needle (close to the jaws) with at least a dozen tight wraps. Then I hold some body material next to the needle and wrap 3-4 loops around the body material. And then make two or more tight half hitches. Now I make the fly, on the needle, sans hook. I make mayfly bodies out of duck flank, zelon wings, ribbing, micro-fibettes, what ever. Then whip finish while still on the needle. Then I slide the whole works off the needle and mount it on a hook.
The original 12 tight wraps (that went around the needle BEFORE anything was attached) now forms a curlicue of squiggly waste thread that does NOT further unravel due to the tight half hitches at the start of the tying procedure. Now trim off the squiggly waste. Now mount the body on a hook. You might want to add a horizontal parachute at this point. That's for a mayfly, winding between scud hook and body. But I use the needle for modular nymph and streamer bodies too...for all sorts of odd stuff.
Some times I wet the length of the extended body with thinned-out water based fabric cement (like Tear Mender). I cut Tear Mender half and half with water, so it soaks in and holds stuff together without making a thick translucent skin.
http://montana-riverboats.com/Uploads/My-my-mayfly.jpg