I don’t have room for bulky stuff and like a simple approach anyway, so use hemastats instead of a turner for curing epoxy.
What I do is tie the fly, apply the 5 minute epoxy, and hand rotate them in the hemastats until they start to set up good, which acutally usually takes about 5 minutes. Once they are set up well enough to not sag, I set the hemastats (and the fly) down where the fly won’t touch any thing until the next day.
I don’t tie a lot of these, so the amount of time isn’t a big deal to me.
At any rate, I wanted some more hemastats, and found a good deal on some on Ebay. (Seller Muddlerminnow49 had some that looked just right, he uses in his own vest so recommends them, and were at a nice price. However, there were a lot of others listed on Ebay too.)
The hemastats are a simple, cheap, and low tech approach that works for me.
i used to just keep the flies in the jaws of the renzetti and rotate that until the epoxy is set up enough not to sag and then remove the fly and hang it on the bobbin rest/holder
For flies like Surf Candies, that’s how I do it, too, since I have more control over the shape of the head; if I put them on the drying wheel, they come out with cylindrical heads, which is not what I’m looking for. For Spoon Flies, I use the hemostats because once I apply the epoxy, I rotate and rock the fly at the same time to distribute the epoxy properly. For most other flies, I use the drying wheel.
I have a good friend who is an ER Nurse and she brings home the disposable Hemos’ from the hospital (after she runs them thru an autoclave to sterilize them). I have at least a dozen pair, and as long she’s an RN I have an endless supply and for free. I have also seen these at the pernmanant fleamarkets where they sell mostly new cheap imported junk. All of these are stainless and all made oversees, but all work just fine for what we need.
She also brings home disposable scissors as well, not the best for tying (not a super fine point or extra sharp like Dr Slick or anything, but great for general cutting of foam, thin skin, rubber legs, wire etc that you dont want to use your best tying scissors on.
Soooo… if you know anyone in the medical profession, ask them about disposable instruments that you can have. If you’re not sure about cleanliness, put them in a coffee can or bucket and sanitize with a bleach water solution.
I also have several sets of hemostats that I have picked up at the local Army Navy Surplus Store for $2.00 each. They usually have several different lengths as well as some other very interesting and useful surgical tools that I use at the bench as well as my shop. If you have a local Army Navy surplus store you might want to drop in to see whaat they’ve got. Just an idea…
Check out these up to 24"!!! http://www.hobbytool.com/hemostatforceps.aspx
Great for Pike, Muskie and the like… Or to remove the hook from a nice big 20" trout…if you’re going up through it’s…well you get the picture!
The hemastats came in and are going to work well. Quality is good to excellent. I paid more than some of you did, in that I paid $15 (includes shippiing) for 5 sets of 5" hemas. They are stainless steel, and have excellent fitting jaws and serations.
They are going to work quite well for curing the epoxy, as I checked them out. I am quite satisfied, but some of you did better than I did.
Now my good hemastats can go back in my vest. (I have gone fishing now TWICE with out remembering to put them back in, and it was a pain a couple or three times to need them and remember that they were near my vise at home.)
I don’t have a rotary vise, Tying on an old Thompson “A”, so rotation of the fly in the vise is not an option for me.