I was making another bodkin with my Dremel and as I grinding a tip I burned my fingers from the heat of the friction :roll: Then it hit me like a sack of rocks… I picked up a Bic lighter and heated up the bodkin tip and put it to the eye of a poorly tied fly and sure as day it cleaned it out! Then I tried it on some hackle, same results. So for you el cheapos like myself go ahead and give it a try.
Travis
Travis:
I used to keep an alcohol burner on my tyng desk just for this purpose. Broke the glass top, so quit using it as the alcohol evaporates out almost overnight without the top.( Finding a fritted glass replacement top is next to impossible to do.)
I use an alcohol burner myself with a wooden handled bodkin. i like to leave it their while i tie it get nice and hot cherry to straw coloured and it works well.
my alcohol lamp is form a “chemistry set” I had back in the 70’s. Ironically it’s a square glass jar about the exact size of a head cement jar. The diameter of the cap on the cement jars are bigger, buuuuttttt, if you take a old cement jar clean it out real good and drill a hole in the lid a bit smaller than a wick (found at most hardware stores) It should works just fine. If mine had a cap to extinguish the flame and cover the wick it was lost 30 years ago. When I’m done using it, I pour the alcohol back in the bottle or it will totally evaporate in a few days.
Or you can just buy a new one for $9 http://www.jannsnetcraft.com/rod-building-tools/029210000006.aspx , but wheres the fun in that?
By the way, I use isopropyl (rubbing ) alcohol, but you have to buy at least 90%. anything less (70%) doest burn very good. Cheaper than denatured alcohol and easier to find.
Hummm sounds better then holding the bic to it, I have a cement jar almost empty and now I have a plan for it. Thanks guys, always making good better!
Travis
While the Bic lighters are no doubt very convenient they will soot up the needle and transfer that soot to the eye of the fly.
If this doesn’t bother you than by all means knock your self out. The alcohol lamp on the other hand burns without the bothersome
soot, can be refueled very inexpensively, and as it stands alone requires only one hand to use, which promotes more accurate work.
It appears that one poster has found a way to keep the needle in the flame while he works on the fly. This is a very interesting adaptation
and would insure the red hot needle is always available to incinerate pesky foreign matter in the eye.
Tight lines,
George