Remove Guard Hairs

[mickalo]

I just aquired a beautiful Muskrat pelt and want to separate the guard hairs from the underfur to use for some patterns.

The underfur does make some great dubbing, but I'm trying to come up with way to remove the guard hairs without all the underfur with it for a couple of patterns I found using muskrat, i.e. Casual Dress nymph.

Anyone have any tricks or tips on the best way to remove the guard hairs from a pelt without loosing allot of it and without allot of the underfur with it ? Been doing by hand right now, pulling a pinch of guard hairs from the fur then putting in a small hair stacker, ... must be an easier & faster way

Thanks,

Mike

[Jayatwork]

You want some underfur in the tail and collar of a Casual Dress and of course the body.

To get only guard hairs I'd clip it, pull out the guard hairs and save the underfur in a zip-lock.

[mickalo]

yes some patterns do call for the guard hairs mixed with the underfur.

I'm gonna try using a real fine tooth comb and comb out as much underfur so I can keep some of the guard separate.

thanks,

MIke

[Joe Billingsley]

Mike,
I bought a solid white rabbit skin a few years ago, cut it into sections, and dyed each one of the sections a different color. I then wanted two batches of dubbing for each color - one with guard hairs mixed in with the underfur and one without the guard hairs. The only way I figured to do the part without the guard hairs was to pluck them or comb out the underfur, just like you said. Neither way was perfect and both were tedious because even with the combing a lot of guard hairs came with it, so I hope you get a good answer for a different method.
Joe

[mickalo]

Using a real fine toothed comb seems to work pretty well so far. Just need to pull the guard hairs out without loosing too many in the underfur ... or all over the floor

Mike

[Cold]

Get yourself a dubbing rake.

Typically used to get finished dubbed flies looking buggy, they're awesome for scraping a patch of fur and scraping up lots of underfur with a minimum of guard hairs.

[Normand]

dont you WANT the guard hairs in the fur when tyind a casual dress??

http://www.rogueflyfishers.org/otf/may04.htm

[mickalo]

Yes for that particular pattern you do want some of the guard hairs. What I was referring too is removing just the guard hairs to used for other patterns that you just want the guard hairs and no underfur ... or as little as possible.

Mike

[Silver Creek]

Here's a tutorial on using a dubbing rake to get the right mix of guard to under fur. Larger teeth gather less guard hair.

http://www.danica.com/flytier/law/law_rake.htm

Some prices:

http://www.google.com/products?q=dubbing+rake&aq=f