Tip of the Week

[ducksterman]

What are your opinions about the comparison of water blending vs using a coffee bean grinder?

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Respect Your Elders!
Ducksterman

[pharper]

Never tried the water way?

2 things: Would it be easier or harder to get the "right" colour because you are working with wet dubbing? And besides the wait time for the dubbing to dry, does it take much longer to cut/shred the materials that you are mixing?

I'm going to have to try it this week. I have some good piles of snowshoe foot fur to mix!

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Paul H.
"Whiskey is for drinking; Water is for Fighting over."
.???`?...?><((((?>#------

[RonMT]

I use a coffee grinder most of the time. But I have used the water method many times in the past and it is still the best way to mix some types of dubbing.
I also have a set of combs that I use for some dubbing's. I feel that it does a better job. They are used for working wool into yarn. I forget the name of them?
One point to make about Coffee grinders is that all of them do not do a good job on mixing dubbing. So be careful on which one you buy. I have a round Braun that I have had for many years that does a good job. I do not know if they still make the one like I have? But I do believe the round shape is the one you want. I had another one that didn't work near as well, I gave it to the wife for Coffee and bought this one. Ron

[okflyfisher]

Polly Rosborough was one of the ones who
promoted making and mixing dubbing in water. As a kid and fledgling fly tier his book "Tying and Fishing Fuzzy Nymphes" was one of my bibles. In it he had a section on how to make the water mixed dubbing. With his book as a guide I made all of my dubbing as a young teenager esentially for free since my family hunted.
Dubbing mixed in water is slightly matted when it dries whichmakes it easy to handle. A small amount on fur is teased out rolled into a fur rope and tied unto the fly with a spinning loop. The dubbing rope is spun around a shorter loop of tying thread with hackle pliers. The thread loop is hidden within the encircling dubbing and wrapped forward as the fly body. The fly bodies are nearly indistructible when tied this way.

[Garic]

Just a thought, but wouldn't mixing dubbing when it's wet give a better representation of the colour it would be when fished?

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Born to fish, forced to work.

[RG/AR]

Garic, exactly so.....

[Gig]

Hello all,

Just a question from a beginner fly tyer and I have no wish to still this post. So what I understand is, that you can use a coffee grinder to grind wool/s (yarn) and fur to make up your own dubbing. Is that correct?

Cheers

[Ray Kunz]

As mentioned many times in the past, wet blending was popularized with the advent of the device. Electric coffee grinders also followed their popularity, but some time later. Wet blending gives you the opportunity to wash natural fur as just a little extra step and the final "felted Mat" that you end up with is very handy to use. One cautionm with the wet process is to avoid trying to blend long fiber lengths of man-made synthetics. They'll just wrap around the cutter.

[catskilljohn]

Gig,
You dont really "grind" them,it just spins them to blend the various mediums together. You have to be careful with some materials though,some of the synthetics will knot together if not cut up small enough.same with yarns.You need to cut up all the material in appr. 1/2 inch pieces before blending. furs are usually ok,they are short enough as is.some fur,like arctic fox is real long,and needs to be trimmed.
I havent tried the wet blending yet,seemed to be alot of work just to mix furs together,but like mentioned above,the matted fur after drying would be easier to work with. thanks for the advice! CJ

To mix dubbing I just use my dubbing box you can read more about how to make your own at the url posted below...
[url=http://www.flyanglersonline.com/features/readerscast/rc66.html:b095e]http://www.flyanglersonline.com/features/readerscast/rc66.html[/url:b095e]


~ Parnelli

Down in the meadow in a little bitty pool
Swam three little fishies and a mama fishie too
"Swim" said the mama fishie, "Swim if you can"
And they swam and they swam all over the dam




[This message has been edited by Steven H. McGarthwaite (edited 19 June 2005).]