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Thread: Professional Tying - Setting Up

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  1. #1
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    Default Professional Tying - Setting Up

    This is a follow-on to the post about Mary Dette Clark suggesting that a pro should be able to tie a dozen catskills in an hour.

    My assumption is that all materials are laid out a head of time. My question is, how is this done?

    Let's say you're tying an Adams:
    I can see setting out say a dozen wings, but how do you keep the wings from floating around all over the place?
    Does a pro set aside a dozen different sets of spade feathers?
    Do you set aside a dozen small balls of dubbing?
    How about the hackle? How do you keep this from floating around?

    Enquiring minds have been wondering about this for awhile.

    -Steven

  2. #2

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    I'm not a professional tier. However, if I'm going to tie a dozen of Adams, I will set a pile of measured grizzly hackles, another pile of measured brown hackles, a third pile with few feathers to take the barbs from to make the tails. If you want to use moose maine, then cut several of them and put them in the hair stacker. I will also set 12 pairs of feathers for the wing and 12 hooks (I like to pinch the barbs, so I do it at this time). The dubbing material doesn't need to be pulled in advance, but the pack has to be at hand. I will have 2 or 3 bobbins ready, for those occasions where the thread gets cut and I need to re-thread the bobbin.
    to avoid things flying around, you need to have a more or less clear of clutter space. Put the sets in front of the vice, and as long as the feathers are in little piles, they will stay where I put them. Keep the scissors in your hand at all time, so you create less air movement trying to reach them.
    M
    "And I think to myself .....what a wonderful world" Satchmo

  3. #3

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    What i have seen done by pro's is that they take a neck and strip it of useful hackle. They then size the hackle and put them in a marked hen it's time to tye they lay everything out and go to town.

  4. #4
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    Steven and others,

    First I think you may bne refering to something I posted on another thread but it was Elsie Darbee Imentioned not Mary Dette.
    Second, yes it certainly saves 'tying time' when you do the necessary 'prep' work. However, when you want an accurate assessment of the time you spent tying, you must include that prep time. As examples: 1)If you took your car in to be fixed and the mechanic said, "It will take a week. I have to get the parts and then install them." You ask, "How long to install?" And he replies, "Just an hour". 2)Did it take 10 years or about 2 hours for the US to get BinLaden? 3)Don't you include the planning time as well as the actual construction for the new World Trade Center Buildings in the total time line? 4)You get an order for 100 dozen Light Hendricksons in sizes 12 and 14. The buyer asks, "How long will it take?" You must include the possibility of ordering any material as well as the prep time and the actual tying to give an accurate response.
    Bottom line when you ask about tying time you need to include the prep work. Yes, it certainly reduces the actual time at the vise but it nonetheless is important when tying for pay.

    Some may disagree with my assessment.

  5. #5
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    Things have changed considerably since the Darbees were tying...

    To tie Adams commercially today I would use cree saddles, wings would still be grizzly.

    The Darbees did not have the luxury of 14" saddles with very little taper and high barb count. The difference in tying speed is huge.

    Dubbing just sits as one big ball until needed, often held cupped in the left hand.

    Steps are always done the same way every time and that sets up a rhythm. Count thread wraps and try to reduce them as much as possible. For example, the wings take three wraps to hold them down, two side by side and the third between them. Then two wraps in front of the lifted wings with a third on top and angled back around the third wrap on the back side. The extra "edge" the third wrap (behind the wing) creates is enough to hold the thread wrap. A pair of turns between the wings and they are flared and the wings are in place with just 8 wraps of thread.

    Every step has to be broken down this way...

  6. #6
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    I agre Hap. Many years ago, when most all of us used necks (which weren't the best), I used to take the feathers off and put them in zip lock bags with the size noted. Not sure it really saved a great deal of time................

    The other thing is this. If speed is that important, you have to count your preparation time as well. Not sure, in the end, if a great deal of time is saved.

    I think Hap's explanation of tying in rhythm with the same number of wraps, etc., etc. is the best way to speed up the tying process.

    A simple habit like keeping your scissors in hand the whole time saves time. Reaching for tools wastes time.

    I took an all-day tying class from Jack Dennis many years ago. He is famous for tying deer hair patterns. He had an entire deer skin draped over his lap while he tied and could then select the most appropriate hair from the skin for differing patterns. Sort of extreme, but that is what he did. Scissors never left his hand either.

  7. #7

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    Quote Originally Posted by Steven View Post
    ...how do you keep the wings from floating around all over the place?
    How do you keep (the hackle) from floating around?
    -Steven
    Simple. Keep your flies away from water until you're ready to fish with them.

    Seriously, I have no interest in tying flies faster, but I do have an interest in tying easier and better flies if that means I can catch more fish with them. Along that line, when tying Adams, which is my all time favorite fly (parachute style), I keep a plastic container at hand in which I have pre-mixed muskrat fur for the body (mixed with a coffee grinder), the same as I do with practically all of my natural fur dubbings. This fur doesn't "float around" at all, even with the top off the container, and all I need do is take a pinch or two out as I apply it to the tying thread. Even though it takes time to pre-mix fur in this manner, it is much faster in the long run to do a large quantity at one time, than cutting fur from the skin, and mixing it in small batches more frequently. (When I first started tying flies, I only cut enough fur from a skin, and mixed it for dubbing for the one fly I was tying at the time, which takes forever.)

    I'm not a fan at all of upright hackle tip wings, which take a disproportionate amount of time to tie anyway, and long ago have replaced them on all of my Adams with Z-lon wings, which are much faster to tie, and more effective, in my opinion.

    I also bumble around a bit tying brown and grizzly mixed hackle barbule tails. These could be tied with one Cree feather, or with Coq de Leon barbules, both of which I sometimes use, but I've found that by pre-selecting one brown and one grizzly hackle of the same size barbule length, and then gluing the two hackles together at the butt ends with super glue, is almost as fast. I sometimes glue a batch of hackles together ahead of time.

    John

    p.s. There are a couple other fly patterns, one of which is the Morrish Hopper for example, that I found an easy way to save time. For the past several years I gone through quite a lot of Morrish Hoppers, and they are quite time consuming for me to tie. As a result, I've found that by making just a sinlge trip to the fly shop, and buying a couple dozen or so at a time, I save a lot of time!
    Last edited by John Rhoades; 03-26-2013 at 02:27 AM.

  8. #8
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    John,
    Had actually never heard of sizing two feathers and then gluing the butts together.
    In any event, whether done while tying or in advance, do you include that time in your calculations?

  9. #9

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    Byron -

    No, I rarely time anything I do these days, except my morning times and distance on the treadmill, both of which are done automatically as soon as I turn the treadmill on!

    However, since I sometimes have difficulty in pairing two separate bunches of hackle fibers - brown and grizzly mixed for the Adams tail in this example - I've found that it is more efficient for me if I glue these two feathers together ahead of time, and sometimes I might glue several or more together at the same time - and I probably get a half dozen, or maybe a few more, flies from each glued pair.

    Since I glue two matching feathers together that have the same barbule length, I automatically get mixed colors of the same length, and approximately the same quantity of each color, with a single pinch.

  10. #10
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    John,
    Sounds like a good idea.

    What I was getting at is that the thread is about speeding up the tying process. Many ideas are proffered which may speed up tying when you start tying. However, you must include all the prep time to your tying time.....
    Otherwise, you could have been tying instead of prepping.


    Myself, I no longer tie for speed. When I tied for a shop ( limited number of patterns), and had a deadline, I did have to tie for speed. As Hap was getting at, you develop a uniform system. As an example, when you tie many flies of the same pattern, you get to the point where you put the exact amount of dubbing on. There is no stopping to remove excess or add some more. You can judge exactly the amount required......

    Now, I tie every day, but casually and whatever idea for a pattern that interests me.
    Last edited by Byron haugh; 03-26-2013 at 04:05 AM.

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