Loon Products/Epoxy/SH/Silicone

[ducksterman]

OK, Maybe noone will respond and that is fine....but only folks that have tried at least two of these things respond...

Using Loon Hard Head ..or..epoxy..or Sally Hansen's Hard as Nails..or Clear Silicone..or other comparable products [you name it]....

Which do you like best and why? Remember we want comparisons not just what you use....

Any one with several comparisons is really valued

[biot midge]

ducksterman,
I have used epoxy, Loon Hard Head, and Sally Hansen,s. I now only use epoxy for Surf Candies and other flies that require covering a large area. I use Loon Hard Head the same way that I use epoxy for smaller flies and for the heads of streamers.I will use Sally Hansen's on the heads of smaller streamers. If the Loon Hard Head came in bigger bottles I probably wouldn't bother with the epoxy at all.
Steve

[ducksterman]

biot...are your choices then driven mostly by cost?

[peregrines]

Hey Ducksterman,

I use a thin mix of regular head cement on most FW stuff, but for SW flies I use Sally Hansen Hard as Nails and Devcon 5-Minute Epoxy depending on the fly pattern. I use SH on some intermediate steps in tying FW nymphs and SW flies to lock in materials for added durability and let dry overnight before finishing.

In salt, Deceivers, Clousers, Flatwings and Hollow Flies and stuff like that get SH in place of head cement. It?s tougher and fills in and smoothes out any thread gaps or bumps better than reg. head cement on quick ties with heavier thread. (BTW you can thin SH with acetone if needed.) I usually put on a wheel for drying to prevent sagging and do several light coats. The consistency of the SH is thicker than the head cement I use on FW, so the wheel helps even things out, other wise you can get a sag somewhere that might throw the tracking of a fly off (or seal the eye).

I?ll use reg. head cement on the heads of large stonefly nymphs, but put a drop of SH on the wing pads. And, unless I?m in a hurry, I also use SH on weighted flies over strips of lead or lead substitute, bound to each side of the hook shank on stonefly nymphs to help get that flat shape and aid in durability, finishing them the next day after they?ve dried. (I tie deceivers the same way, with a coat of SH to lock down the hackle tails overnight, and it?s worked well enough that now I don?t even bother to put a chenille or mylar wrap over the shank, just hide it with the bucktail collar the next day after drying.).

I only use epoxy on Surf Candy type flies, and other flies like Spread Flies, using synthetic fibers where I want to spread out fibers to get a specific shape. You can create a thin fly with a sunfish type of profile for example, with a relatively sparse amount of material (easy to cast, and it?s sort of translucent). This is a great fly to imitate some of the bait we get here like peanut bunker and butterfish with an oval shape. The Surf Candy imitates a sand eel (sand launce out there?) that has a long thin profile, again with a minimum of fibers. The advantage of 5 minute epoxy is that you basically have to hold the fibers in place (takes 2 hands) while the epoxy sets up a little (2-3 minutes) to keep the fibers in the shape you want for a Candy or Spread Fly before you put it on a wheel, so each fly doesn?t kill your whole evening like a longer curing 30 minute type might because of its thinner consistency (or SH which is a lot thinner). I use a VERY thin first coat to set the fibers in position. When it?s dry, I put on eyes, color red gill slits and shade the back with sharpies and put on a heavier second coat to fill in any gaps and seal it and turn it again on the wheel till dry.

I do get some yellowing on the 5 minute epoxy after 6 months to a year, none on flies with SH. The SH is easier and faster to work with than epoxy and doesn?t weigh as much, so I prefer to use it when I can on other stuff. Keeping epoxy flies in a dark box helps delay yellowing, which doesn?t seem to affect their fishability in any event. Epoxy is great if you want to create a thin 2-D profile up/down or side/side (like epoxy bonefish flies). It?s not good if you want to create a 3-D shape to imitate a baitfish like a mullet which has a round cross section (like a big Rapala). That?s where silicone comes in for patterns like Popovic?s Siliclone. It?s an ungodly mess to work with and requires other stuff like PhotoFlo. You can get similar profiles by using spun deerhair heads or hollow ties to push water without turning your hands into Glacier Gloves.

Having said all this, a lot of saltwater tyers, including Bob Popovic, that have tried it, rave about the Tuffleye stuff and it has replaced epoxy for them. It?s an acrylic resin that?s cured with a special blue light (not UV) and eliminates the yellowing and odor of epoxy. The initial start up cost is kind of steep since the light is about $75, so unless you?re planning on doing a lot of ?specialty patterns? that require a material like epoxy for shaping it?s probably not worth switching.

If you go the epoxy route, it?s very important to get the proportions of A and B stuff close to equal. I avoid the plunger type thingy because of this, and use tubes of each, squirting a dime size blob of each side by side for eyeball comparison in a jar lid and mix well with a toothpick. Otherwise you?ll end up with a cloudy or permanently tacky finish. Save the mixing for a bunch of flies to finish off all at once.

Sorry for the long post, had too much coffee. Hope this helps.

peregrines

[flyandtie]

I heard your not supposed to use a toothpick because it makes the yellowing happen faster. Doesn't seem to be making your epoxy yellow quicker though.

[peregrines]

FlyandTie,

It could be some left over spaghetti sauce in the jar lid I mix it in too?

Some guys that obsess more than I do about the yellowing put on two coats of epoxy, (same light first coat, with heavier second coat to fill in gaps) drying between coats, then slip a silver or pearlescent tube of mylar over it, put on eyes, mark it up with a pen (gill slits etc.) then everything gets coated again with a thin layer of epoxy, or even SH. This will make the yellowing much less noticeable. It looks good too, just an extra step and more drying time.

Either way, I don?t think it makes much difference for NE salt with the possible exception of Albacore (we get False Albacore) and maybe Bonito. I tie up different versions for them (smaller and tan over white) to imitate the bay anchovies they feed on, in the beginning of August for their hoped for arrival now-October so they don?t get a chance to yellow. The yellowish ones leftover from last season stay in the box as back up ammo, but I reach for the new ones first for albies.. I fish in the surf for ?em, so I don?t get many shots if they decide to blast through and they can be very finicky, so I?ll go with new ones just in case.

peregrines

[J Castwell]

Mix your epoxy on 'sticky notes'. The epoxy doesn't soak into it. And they stay still because they have that strip of adhesive on the back.

[Normand]

I heard your not supposed to use a toothpick because it makes the yellowing happen faster. Doesn't seem to be making your epoxy yellow quicker though.

not true

[dudley]

I heard your not supposed to use a toothpick because it makes the yellowing happen faster. Doesn't seem to be making your epoxy yellow quicker though.

not true

I was taught by the Rev. Page Rodgers, one of the pioneers of epoxy fly tying, that using a wooden tool to mix epoxy will incorporate bubbles and cause yellowing
This was probably 10-12 years ago...maybe my memory fades, maybe she was wrong
Maybe, but I don't think so

[Dr. Fish]

I never use Epoxy anymore as I hate working with it. It stinks and if it isn't mixed perfectly it does not cure properly. I have found that the Loon UV Knot Sense works very well for me and use it in place of expoxy now as it's easy to work with, has no real smell and most importantly, it only cures when I'm ready for it to cure : )

I do also use Loon Hard Head too and like it a lot. My main complaint with this product is that it about dries up after only using about 1/2 the bottle so there is lots of waste. I do like the nice even coverage I get with it and it's high gloss, clear finish. I use this when I need a decent amount of material that is not going to need to be thick. USed most often for glass minnow and Alvin patterns along with some crab and shrimp patterns.

H.H. Hard as Nails is also great and I use this mostly on the smaller flies or when applying a real thin gloss coat over eyes. I often use this as a final coat over the UV Knot Sense as well. This gets used a lot on trout flies as well as over the head and eyes on larger warmwater or saltwater flies.