free Piece of plastic

[Panman]

We all have seen one of those trucks on the road hauling pieces of glass for windshields or what ever. The contents to be delivered locally. The glass is packed in various items to prevent breakage. One outfit here gets little pieces of hard foam of different sizes that they throw away. I find that these pieces can be useful to the tyier . Perhaps you might. here's a picture.Flies are a size 10. Piece is 2 by 3 by 1/2 inches. I don't know if I can get any more but maybe you can.

Tim

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[AlanB]

There are a multitude of items thrown away by one user as waste that is invaluable to another. Mather and Platt, and engineering company who, amongst lots of other things produced sprinkler systems, "disposed" of many thousands of gallons of a by product until they discovered trichloroethane was a superb degreasing agent. Now they sell it. More than one waste product ends up in small packets in fly fishing shops. There is even a web site here for companies to list waste materials that may be useful to other companies.

When I ran the bakery at work the apple pies came with thin sheets of closed cell foam packaging between the layers. That was very useful.

My friend Barry Ord Clark and Brian Speight wrote The International Guide to Fly Tying Materials and Where to Buy Them. Its still available (much to the annoyance of the materials industry), and will let you into the secrets of what a lot of materials really are.

One example (don't think this is in the book) is that sintered drilled and counter bored tungsten beads are manufactured by a German company as a part for the Italian motor industry to use in windscreen wiper assemblies. This is only a useful piece of information if you wish to buy your tungsten beads by the kilogram per size. By the time you have paid someone minimum wage to bag them into 25s, and added store profit the price will not be significantly different to what you pay for a bag of 25 (I have been that person who bags them into 25s, its not a great job).

Its also worth remembering that when you save a few pennies buy buying that material form another source you are taking business from the fly shop. No matter how much you buy from craft stores etc. they will never stock hooks. Neither will you find them as waste from another industry.

Cheers,
A.

[Byron haugh]

AlanB,
You have two interesting and conflicting points. Both quite true.

There are inexpensive places to acquire items which can be used in fly tying.
AND, by getting them at craft stores or from the scrap of other products you do deny the fly shop revenue.

I have seen fly shops have to go out of business. Like most other retail, the internet makes price the King and the big stores can cut prices more than the little guy who orders less quantity from the dealers/manufacturers. It's a shame to see a small local fly shop close. They offer more than products. They are usually very willing to share info on a wide variety of subjects about tying/fishing. Many of them help young guys with casting assistance, tying classes, etc., etc.

There are always two sides to the coin......

[AlanB]

That, Byron, is the point I was trying to make. Sometimes the fly shops do charge a lot for products which are pennies if you know where to get them. There is one material which a standard pack contains about 0.048 UKP worth of material. That material comes in 1.230 x 50 meter rolls. The standard pack contains a piece about 50 by 150 mm, and sells for upwards of 2.00UKP. I use a lot of this material and know 1 standard fly tying pack will make 60 to 80 flies. That means that one roll will give you almost 8000 packs. It is available in 15 colours, meaning minimum stock order is 120000 packs or enough material for 9 600 000 flies. That's just the numbers for one material. After packing costs you would turn an investment of around 10k into about 220K (or 110K if you wholesale) It sounds great but do you want to spend days cutting it up and bagging it? How long will it be before an investment like that shows a profit? Most retailers don't sell 10 packs a week. I know if I had a spare 10000 UKP I wouldn't be investing it that material! I doubt I'll be around long enough to see a return.

Fortunately, as I work for a major retailer of it, I get what I need at cost, unpackaged. I am probably the major end user of this material for fly tying in the UK. I struggle to get through 50 packs a year. Mind you I am also, it seems, the only one with the common sense to cut it up in such a way as to get the maximum out of each pack. To quote from the rag trade "A good layer out is worth their weight in cabbage". ("Cabbage" is the material left over when a pattern is cut out from the cloth).

Anyone still want to get into the fly tying material business?

Cheers,
A.

[Byron haugh]

Yes, AlanB, I was agreeing with both your points. Glad to see you point out the unintended consequence of lessening a fly shop's revenue.