A friend of mine ordered the Petitjean Magic Tool from a vendor plus the accessory tool kit and when the order arrived he only received the Magic Tool clamps and no tool kit. He contacted the vendor and they apologized and told him they would send the tool kit. When the next order arrived they had duplicated his first order and he ended up with the tool kit plus 2 of the Magic Tool clamps kits. He called the vendor and let them know what had happened and told them he would send back the duplicate Magic Tool clamps and they told him to just keep them. Since he did not need the second set he offered them to me and I took him up on the offer. ( Thanks Keven)
The Petitjean Magic Tool clamps are fun to experiment with and they do have their place with some dubbing material handling. The first material I wanted to try was Boa Yarn because I never liked the bulk this material created when wound onto the hook shank. With the Magic Tool clamps you are able to put one strand of Boa Yarn down into the clamp and easily cut off the stitched side which leaves your clamp loaded with only the yarn fibers to install into your dubbing thread loop and twist away. I like the looks of the body with Boa Yarn done this way and made up one pattern in all white and one in black and white and thought I would share a picture of each. I think I am going to have fun experimenting with the Petitjean Magic Tool clamps.
“Couldn’t you do the same thing with a split thread dubbing technique?”
Yes you could and that is what the Petitjean Magic Tool recommends, but, I just prefer to use a dubbing loop. I feel it is stronger. I guess what I am saying is that using the Magic Tool is a lot easier than the method I came up with to tie the BY Bugger which you can do a search for on the home page of FAOL. Cutting the stitched edge off is a lot easier with the Magic Tool than it was with the material in a dubbing loop like I showed in the tying instructions for the BY Bugger on the FOTW section. I have had good success with the BY Bugger and the color combinations are endless.
The Magic Tool is a good tying tool and it does have it’s place on my tying table. I may not use it for a lot of my dubbing, but, there are some places where it makes the making and using a dubbing rope a lot easier and I feel gives the fly a better looking profile. I know it makes tying with Boa Yarn a lot easier. To me, Boa Yarn is very difficult to cut without it trying to “walk out of your scissors”. It also helps making a dubbing rope from Doug Swisher’s Rub-A-Dub Dubbing easier and more uniform. This is the dubbing with the small micro rubber pieces in it.
