I came across an article in a magazine recently in which a guy used the copper mesh that comes in the coax ariel cables. You know the copper sheath that surrounds the plastic tube which contains the thick copper wire.

He used it to make fly bodies and tube flys. I tried it and it looks really good, used like mylar tubing it makes decent looking scale bodies and weights the fly at the same time. I made tube flies also by keeping the plastic tube inside it pulling out the copper wire.

Another article which I discovered and use sometimes is plumbers PTFE tape. Thats that really thin white tape that plumbers use to seal the threads on pipe joints. Wrapped around the hook shank before tying makes really good bright white bases to the hook shank. Tye materials onto it very sparcely so it shows through.

I wondered what other strange materials you guys may have found that can be of benefit to the rest of us???