Hand whip finish most of the time down to 20's, use the materelli on my jigs
Fatman
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Hand whip finish most of the time down to 20's, use the materelli on my jigs
Fatman
interesting data, I learned to use a half hitch tool then a whip finish tool, I spent the time to learn to hand finish but found I have more control with tool. I was thinking perhaps the people who use no tool where tying bigger flies, as I tend to bend the smaller hooks with out a tool.
Eric
I mastered the Materelli in about 2 minutes but the other one baffels the heck out of me. I have tried following a video instruction showing exactly how to do it but out of 20 tries I only managed to fluke it once.
I used to do all my finishes with 3 or 4 half hitches or quarter hitches whichever they are called. Then enough glue to repair the rip in the Titanic. My flies fairly dripped with glue. Made em shiny and they caught fish.
Now however I use the Materelli for everything, its quick, simple and never comes undone so I no longer use glue on the heads.
I have never had any trouble tying flys down to #22 with a 1/2 hitch.
For dry cracked fingers and thumbs I use Yosemite Fly Tyers finger treatment. The stuff works very well.
I really don't think that it is an either or situation or at least it isn't with me. I teach to use a half hitch tool, a martelli whip finish tool, hand half hitch or what Buddy calls quarters and to do a whip finish by hand. To be a complete tier it is just more options available to you.
My mentor doesn't like glue, says that this fish smell it. I've caught a lot of fish with smelly flies and I like the durability it offers.
Even the hand half hitch I like to teach to do it with a bodkin, just using your finger and finally using the point of the scissors that you already have in your hand because you don't sit down your scissors.
Watched a man that I admire as a tier for a couple of hours this past weekend at a show: Dennis Potter. He preaches durable flies yet never uses a whip finisher. He does use a half hitch tool.
Some patterns are easier to finish with different tools so by being familiar with many techniques give you options. If you have more difficulty with one or the other the next time at the bench just work on the one you don't do well. Keep working on it until you do it well.
Rick
To add to Buddy's comments, the older tiers apparently tied off by hand or with a 'half-hitch" tool, and they did not use cement. Most made their own tying wax which, when "dry", set up like we expect head cement to do. They did not have pre-waxed thread available to them, so they waxed their own, either by dissolving some type of wax and soaking a spool of thread in it until it was saturated, or by running the tying thread through some sort of wax. They did not use bobbins. They simply cut (broke) off a piece of thread that was sufficient to tie the fly, waxed it by pulling it through a cake or a pad of some sort with a dab of wax inside. They maintained thread tension by repeated half-hitches and securing the standing end of the thread under a "button" on the front of their tying desk (see Art Flick's "Master Fly Tying Guide"). In some cases, the "wax" was so sticky that a tensioning device was unwarranted; I would personally put Helen Shaw's recipe in this realm (I still have some from a batch I made many years ago).
There are some interesting stories out there associated with "making your own tying wax". One of the funniest is related by Harry Darbee in his book "Catskill Fly Tier". Seems like what the Darbee's and the Dette's made looked like taffy, and was once mistaken to be such. You can read the book for "the rest of the story", to steal a line from the late Paul Harvey.
I agree with Clay's case for versatility; however, I think that we all have a preferred method, and sometimes suit our tying to our strengths.
Example: I use a small Matarelli for 97% of my flies (the other 3 being odd streamers that require an extended reach matarelli). Some have mentioned the Thompson's advantage with finishing parachutes. I generally circumvent this by whip finishing, with the matarelli, about the post, and securing with a 1/2 drop of CA glue. Works for me, and makes for a neater fly than when I finish about the shank.
Like I said in the other post sorry for repeating myself but I've been tying for 35 years mostly salmon flies and all forms of trout flies but only down to#18 and whip finish by hand and it is mostly due to the fact is thats the way I was shown, If I had of been shown to use a whip finish tool from the start I probably would never have learned by hand.Also after working undergroundfor 25 years hands were pretty rough and sand papperish and yes the thread got caught and frayed but I thought It was part of tying.
I can whip finish by hand as small as I want to, I guess size 22. I can't knot fish smaller flies onto a tippet all that well and prefer not to go below 18s for fishing.
Ed
i've whip finished everything from 4/0 to 26---but I quit tying smaller than size 18 for years.
On parachutes i use a half hitch tool under the hackles to avoid tying the hackles down.
I've seen Dave Witlock do this on nearly every fly he ties. You really need the quick setting glue for this to work. This and a single half hitch would SEEM to be the best all around. But like so many techniques we get it into our minds how we think it should be done from a traditional point of view, and have a hard time accepting radically different ideas.
I can whip finish by hand (learned to do it after not figuring out the Thompson tool like so many others), but once I got a Materelli type tool, I can do it faster with that than by hand. I particularly like the extended reach Materelli, it's much easier to get a half hitch or to whip finish behind a popper body etc. or between tying steps.
The bottom line is that not every technique works for every situation.