I was tying flies with a friend the other day and wanted to share a little trick I picked up from him. I always struggled changing out threads on my bobbin and was thinking of maybe considering buying a bobbin threader when I noticed how he threaded his. I thought it was a great idea and wished I’d thought of it myself. All you do is start inserting the thread, which usually gets stuck at some point along the way, then suck on the end of the bobbin and the thread gets pulled the rest of the way through. Maybe not the most sanitary thing to do when working with dried animal hides and stuff but hey we eat beef jerky all the time without mishap Maybe everyone already knows this trick and I’m just the slow one, but figured I’d share.
I made my own out of an old steel E-string. (the little one :p) One of my son’s friends broke one, and I claimed it. I bent it in the middle, and glued a bead at the free end.
On a side note, steel guitar strings are too stiff to tie with. you let up tension on it, and it “spriongs” on you.
I’ve done it before. Not the most sanitary way of doing it. With swine flu, chicken flu or whatever is out there - I prefer a threader of some kind. With all the fur and feathers we use, I prefer to play it safe.
i use the ‘mouth and draw’ method 99% of the time but every now and then use a threader just to clean out any waxy junk that may have built up over time inside the tube.
I’ve used the “oral thread retrieve” method since I started tying in 1957. If you wanted a real challenge, you should try threading the old Herter’s bobbin with it’s J-shaped thread tube this way. But in all that time, I should add, that I never exhaled. 8T
That is the way I have threaded bobbins since I started tying more than thirty years ago. I didn’t know there were such things as bobbin threaders for 20 of those years.
Take a piece of leader/tippet material about 8" in length and fold it in half forming a “V”.
Then insert the ‘V’ into the bobbin shaft till it reaches the other side. Then insert your thread( about 5-6") into the opening formed by the ‘V’. Then pull the leader material back thru the bobbin shaft. It should grab the thread and pull it thru , thus 'threading the bobbin.
the leader material must be small enough so the doubled piece slides thru the hole without binding of course!
Everyone who knows me knows how much I suck, so my position is that if you do something well, then you should keep doing it.
There’s a hundred ways to come up with a mechanical’ threader’. All of them work. But it takes time. Sucking is faster. I’m not worried about ‘sanitary’ here…it’s a metal tube with thread…we all breathe in or eat spiders, bugs, and mites as we sleep…then there’s the air around us whenever we venture out in the public…all those pathogens…if you are going to get sick from your own bobbin, you need to get out more.
Thanks for all the feedback and glad to see that the sucking method is better known than I had realized. I kind of figured I may have been stating the obvious, but wanted to pass on what my friend Bob taught me since my previous way was rather pathetic and mundane. Never used a bobbin threader and just sat there trying to pass the thread through on its own. Not going back to that and don’t think I’ll be using a threader either. Sounds like the sucking method has been around a while and will be here for a lot longer since it still works and is simple and quick.
I used to teach “Blood and Airborne Pathogen” classes. You are entitled to your opinion and I’m entitled to mine. I don’t need to get out more because I fish almost eveyday. It probably takes me 1-3 seconds longer using a threader. If the threader is not were it belongs, I usually get mad and I will suck it up.
Well thanks. I never knew about nor thought about sucking the thread through the bobbin tube. My first method was doubled monofilament. Then I got a threader. Know, thanks to FAOL I know one more method. Thanks gpatton. Jim
Maybe everyone already knows this trick and I’m just the slow one, but figured I’d share.