dubbing or chenille

I received a fly (for steelhead) from a friend who wanted me to make up a dozen or so. The body material is confusing. it looks like either a chenille with very fine hair-like fibers (could be synthetic, as they are finer than calf tail) and very fine tinsel, but the fibers are about an inch long. The material is "palmer wound" the length of the body leaving a shaggy body made of the hair and tinsel.

The other option i was guessing at was that this was some twisted dubbing with these long fibers and fine tinsel twisted into a homemade chenille.

Anyone ever heard of a material like this? I have seen some, but the length is throwing me off, as everything like this i have seen is either much shorter strands, or much longer strands.

Thanks for any thoughts

Mike

The thinnest hair-like material I've seen is Craft Fur. You can spin it in a dubbing loop, then palmer that. Dale "iaflyfisher" had recently shown me some of Gary Borger's patterns that he ties with this technique.
Here's a link to one of his patterns:
http://www.garyborger.com/flies-and-...leech-blended/

I could be way off with this suggestion. Any chance you could post a picture of that pattern you are trying to copy? Maybe some of other folks here can give you better suggestions once they actually see the fly?

Could be a lot of things, a picture really would help. Best guess from your description would be a long fiber dubbing with flash like Arizona Simi Seal tied in a dubbing loop. You can get the same effect with a long fibered dubbing just as angora goat mixed with a little Angel Hair cut to length. Flashabou makes a very fine dubbing additive as well. You might want to look at Ice Dub too, depending on if the flash is more like fibers than thin flat slivers of mylar.

Luck.

Kind of sounds like Polar Chenille or maybe even Krystal Hackle, but Krystal Hackle may be longer than 1", but I am thinking Polar Chenille is maybe closer. Also Wapsi makes some stuff called Pearl Chenille and I ordered some of that and they send the wrong thing and sent was the same material, but a hackle type with about 1" long fibers. All of these are on a chenille type material, but with synthetic type hackle that you warp just like chenille.

Check into that.

Skip

I retract my statement about Craft Fur having the thinnest fiber I could think of. It occurred to me that something like Icelandic Sheep Wool might be as thin or thinner. Just throwing out ideas. :)

Thanks for the quick reply. you aren't way off. This tie is sparse compared to the leech, but looks like it may be on the right track. I have attached a photo. looks better on my computer screen. Hope you can see enough detail

Mike


Attachment 8074

Couldn't see your picture, but it sounds like Wapsi's Palmer Chenille. I have some medium size that is almost an inch long fine fibers and fine tinsel. I have small that is about half inch long. I use it like hackle for wooley bugger stuff for the surf. Good luck.

Beaver

sorry for the picture problems

Attachment 8076

Thanks for all the suggestions. From the images available, it looks most like Krystal Hackle. I will pick some up and see what it looks like up close and personal.

Thanks for the help

Mike