I am new to this form but have been reading it for some time. I have been tying my own flies for a long time but I have not yet learned to do dubbing. Do any of you have any suggestions on how I can learn to do this.
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I am new to this form but have been reading it for some time. I have been tying my own flies for a long time but I have not yet learned to do dubbing. Do any of you have any suggestions on how I can learn to do this.
Practice!
The basic idea is pretty simple get some fluffy stuff on the thread to wrap around the hook, from there you just got to try it till you figure out.
You might remember... only rotate your fingers in one direction.
Rule No1 apply your dubbing material Sparingly. Trying to get the job done quickly by loading the dubbing material in big lots, will cause a lot of strife. Little by little works best. Jax
I sometimes wet(lightly) my finger and thumb while spinning. It helps me with the coarser types of dubbing. Also, re-spinning the dubbing every couple of turns will keep it spun on the thread.
Have you tried dubbing loops? DL add another dimension to your tying.
Later...
Yep. A little goes a long way. Take as much as you think you will need for a small section and then take away half of that. sparsely apply it to the thread, twisting your fingers in one direction only, and wrap in close, turns. Then, apply some more, and repeat. After you have done this several times you will begin to get a better feel for it. It is pretty frustrating at first (particularly when you see people dubbing perfectly tapered bodies) it just takes time and practice. Probably the hardest thing for me to learn.
I've gotten lazy and tend to use punch yarn for dubbing where I can.
I am still pretty new and sometimes my dubbing comes out good and sometimes it doesn't. My guess is the direction you twist the dubbing onto the thread matters though I haven't had time to test it out yet. My theory is as you wrap the dubbing around the hook you are twisting it with the thread. Therefore depending on how you twisted it on you maybe untwisting it. My guess it you should twist it on the the thred in a counter-clockwise direction if you are a right handed tier...Like I said I haven't tested this thoery yet...can someone with more experience comment?
There is another dubbing method I saw on a online video where on the "tip" of the dubbing is wrapped around the thread and the action of wrapping the thread and dubbing together does the rest...A Whitlock method.
ftp://ftp1.flyfishohio.com/Sparrow_W.wmv
Thanks guys for your input. I will be trying all of these soon. The bigest problem I seem to have is geting the dubbing to stick to the thread. I have tried the loop method and just a single therad with added wax and glue stick with no luck. The dubbing material I am trying to use is Fly-Rite extra fine poly. Is this what I should be using.