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I always find questions about such tools as Whip finishers etc. to be interesting, every one throws in there Ideas on the subject with out information which might be highly useful. for those of you who don't use the whip finisher. What size hooks do you primarily tie on. do you get into the 20s or do you tend to tie in the 1/0 range?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Eric
For most trout flies, except streamers, I use a double half-hitch and head cement and I can't remember the last time I had a fly come apart. For streamers and saltwater I usually hand whip-finish.
Regards,
Scott
I normally hand whip finish all of my flies until I get down below size 20 hooks. Sizes 22, 24 or maybe even 26 requuire a Materalli Whip finisher. The only other time I use one is when my hands get really chapped and dry. Trying to whip finish with dry hands just tears up the thread for me. Picking up a whip finisher after every fly I tie gets tiresome to me. Just my way of doing things. There's no best way--just what suits you.
Bruce
Whip finish all my flies with my hand. Only because when i bought a kit to start tying 3 years ago there was no whip finisher in it. Bought one a while back but can't get to grips with it.
ditto, except i half hitch everythingQuote:
Originally Posted by ScottP
does a certain range of hook sizes require anyone to use a whip finisher??
I tie bass bugs to size 22s.
Never did get the hang of a whip finisher, but then I learned to hand finish when I learned to tie. I do three double half-hitches by hand on most flies. Down in the smaller range (ie: 18's and smaller) I use a half-hitch tool, which is nothing more than an old mechanical pencil tube.
Been tying for almost thirty years now and this method works for me. I don't glue most flies due to the finish knot, with the exception of when I use mylar as a wing-case or something similar and I'll add a drop of cement.
Kelly.
There's no 'requirement' to whip finish any fly.
Why folks 'whip finish' is two fold.
First, for years, everyone has been bombarded with the idea that whip finishing a fly is an issue of quality/skill and thus all good fly tyers do it. Probably not true.
Second, a properly done whip finish ends with the loose end of the thread covered and held tightly under several wraps of thread. This protects the thread from catching on stuff and helps keep it from being cut by a fish's teeth. Whether that is a valid reason to do this is up to you. Many whip finishes are done backwards, with a portion of the tag end laying exposed on top of the wraps, which defeats this second purpose. Still a pretty secure knot, though.
A quarter hitch, what most folks call a half hitch and what you make with the half hitch tools sold today, is not very secure by itself. It was designed to come loose easily, and it does. Two of them done with opposing loops makes a true half hitch. You can see you've done it correctly if the thread direction is reversed on the second one. Again, not very secure by itself. It's designed to hold under tension, but come undone easily without the lines tangling (it's an old sailing ship knot). What most of the folks who use 'half hitches' do is string several quarter hitches together in a row. A lot of these is a 'timber hitch', but only two or three is just two or three quarter hitches. Each knot in itself isn't all that secure, but two or three of them isn't bad. Add in a bit of head cement, and it's fine for any fly that's going to be fished.
Probably the strongest knot available to fly tyers for securing the tag end of their tying thread isn't a knot at all. It's what they call the 'Zap Knot' or the super glue knot. Wetting a small section of the thread with a CA glue and then just wrapping it into place and cutting it close is certainly more secure than a string of quarter hitches or probably even a whip finish or two. As long as you don't mind dealing with the glue.
The only requirement for a finish knot is that it holds up to your fishing expectations and you can execute it to your satisfaction.
Buddy
This is what I use 95% of the time.Quote:
Originally Posted by Buddy Sanders
Tony P
I whip finish by hand, but have only tied sizes 8 to 14 thus far. I chose to do it by hand to both see if I could do it and because purchasing/reaching for a tool to tie knots just seems like a waste.
I use a whip finish knot because it is provably stronger than a series of hitches and, to my eye, looks better. I hit it with head cement anyway, so my flies are probably tanks.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Buddy Sanders
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.
I seem to be able to whip finish every fly by hand, no matter how large or small, wherever on the fly I want, and have done 32s. The problem is that many tiers use a hand whip finish that is difficult to start in the exact spot that you'd like it to start, hence the perceived "lack of precision" of the hand whip finish. I can put the thread wraps exactly where I want with Dave Hughes' method, one that not many tiers seem to use, inexplicably. I'm not really knocking the tool, but I will say this about finishing with crazy glue. Finish a #32 with crazy glue and see how you do. The glue, by its nature, is pretty imprecise, even if you do coat the thread only. By the way, I saw Dave Whitlock glue a number of flies together and they were just fine. None were small however. As to speed, nothing slows one down quite as much as having to pick up a tool.
Eric
I would once again point out that the tutorial on whip finishing by hand on Eric's site is THE very best such tutorial on the interwebs.
My philosophy boils down to two things. The first is that I learned to use a whip finisher, so I use it. Takes a second or two, put it down and you are done.
The second is that it works, so why mess with it? Other methods may well work, so why mess with them if they work for a tier, either? I have had less success with multiple hitches in place of a whip finish, possibly since I use unwaxed thread most of the time and do not use head cement.
There's no right and wrong to this, just different ways of doing it.
I use a retractable pen to half hitch all my flies...
I guess we can say different strokes for different folks. For the tying ? part, I don't tie smaller than 14. For finishing it's whichever tool is closer. If they're under material I hand whip.
Though thinking about it...if the fly really has a built up head I tend to make it a point to find the whip finishing tool. Don't know why, I just do.
I think the strongest finish is probably the 'Super-Glue' knot. It's neat, and I've never had one come apart, yet.
But, I usually whip-finish my flies, just because I have been doing them that way for 40+ years. Old habits.......
I really don't tie any more, but I must admit I'm thinking about it again. Al Campbell loved teasing me about finishing flies by hand, but I do not use a whip finisher at all. And yes, I can do it on size 32 as well, I think it is more exact. The late JC could use a whip finisher but preferred to hand finish as does Trav. It might be our combined backgrounds from where we all learned in Michigan right after the wagon train. :lol:
i use a materelli. lost most of right hand as a teen and have but 2 fingers. i've managed to learn to whip finish by hand but it's slow and difficult.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gigmaster
I've heard many say this, but I always thought that most CA type super glues were NOT waterproof. Zap a gap advertises that it is. Maybe the ones that aren't waterproof that work tells us that we really don't fish a fly as much as we think that we do. Or maybe it holds up long enough for the life of the fly. :confused:
Rick
I whip finish w/ my fingers and I tie everything from size #20 trout flies to 4/0 pike flies. I would say most of my tying is for trout and the sizes I tie mostly are #18-6.
Whip finish by hand. Everything and everysize. If you are having trouble bending the hook on smaller flies use less pressure on your wraps, the thread is not going anywhere. Personally I use head cement, the runny stuff, either applied with a bodkin oy a cut quill tip the latter for precision for un waxed thread and store bought waxed thread. I tie a lot of my Flymphs using wax from an old recipe from J Harrington Keene that Leisenring favored. This wax is basically an adhesive made mostly of pine rosin. Tie a fly with this stuff and the fly is virtually indestructable including the whip finish at the end. The half hitch is the least secure and reliable way to finish a fly, head cement or glue is a must or your fly will unravel. I'm not a big fan of the wonder glue. I've had flies unravel using the stuff. Went back to the bench and tried use the glue in conjuction with a whip finish and had a glob at the end of my fly :lol: Head cement is just easier for me.
Great question.
Jim
I whip finish everything by hand, mostly because I can never lay something down in the same place twice, so have to search my desk every time I want another tool, and the one on the end of my fingers is always there.
i have never tied anything below a 14........i generally tie long-shank 10's...which is my fav.....even 4 wooly-buggers....i'll use a # 10.........
Which way to finish off a fly? It is not a question of which is best for everyone, use the method that is best for YOU!Some people can whip finish by hand, some use a tool, some use 1/4 or1/2 hitches by hand or tool. Some use glue, but whatever you use, use what is best for you, you are the one tying that fly. Take care, John.