I have recently began tying. Right now, due to surgery, I am out of work for a couple of weeks and I am hitting the tying bench hard. There are a few things I am having trouble with.
One is keeping my hair from spinning around the hook as I wrap my thread. I tried making two loose loops first, but its not working for me.
Second, my dubbing does not want to stay tight to my thread. After, or while i am tying, it comes loose and makes my bodies look sloppy.
Third, is there a good rule to use when measuring how much hair I use for comparadun or haystack wings? I seem to either use too much or too little. I can’t find a happy medium.
sounds like you’re trying to spin the entire bag of dubbing all at once. try using the tiniest wisps of dubbing. you should see the thread beneath the dubbing. use dubbing wax or wet your dubbing fingers with a little saliva before dubbing. you can always add more but its more difficult to remove excess dubbing
ive always seen recipes that call for a “wooden match” diameter. try that
I’m only going to address your question about dubbing. As Normand suggests, use only the smallest pinch of dubbing at a time—far less than you think you need. Pinch the hell out of the dubbing as you roll it on the thread—really hard. Roll the dubbing on the thread in only one direction. As a last resort try a little dubbing wax. Even experienced tyers have to retighten their dubbing if they’ve dubbed a long section of thread, Hope this helps. 8T
As a relatively new tier myself, I’m am taking the hair spinning from a different angle, especially when you said that it spins even when you wrap two loose wraps first. I am thinking that you are placing the hair on the top, then when you tighten the thread the hair rolls to the far side of the hook instead of staying on top.
One loose wrap like before, on the second wrap, instead of pulling down on the thread, pull up tightening the thread on the bottom of the hook. This combined with the pinch technique works well for me.
On the dubbing: on a dry fly like the EHC, many don’t like to use wax. Maybe not the most sanitary, but I haven’t had any parts start glowing in the dark yet, but I wet my index finger and thumb with my tongue then roll the dubbing on. My tying instructor said take the amount of dubbing that you think you need, cut it in half, then take half of that and you will only have twice what you really need instead of much, much more.
Hey there Terry !
When I’m tying hair wings, I never go right on a bare hook with it, I wrap one layer of thread first as a base, and wax that and the thread, that gives the hair something to grab on and keep from spinning till I get a few good tight wraps on to hold it. If you’re talking about spinning and packing hair for poppers or muddler style heads that’s diferent, you want the hair to spin around the hook. use small, successive bunches, and pack them tight between. Another thing about hair wings, smallish bunches are best, I go with a little bunch about the diameter of a medium artists paintbrush.
Sticky dubbing wax and less dubbing may help with that process…Happy tying !
…ModocDan
Hi Terry I usually plan on the hair wing climbing up the hook shank. That is I start it a bit on the side of the hook and allow the thread pressure to bring it to the top as I tighten the thread on the first wrap. With only one or two wraps it can be adjusted if need be and then locked down with the other wraps covering the butts. With practice you will not have to make any adjustment vey often. I agree with Dan about a thread base to help keep it from slipping later and you can also put a drop of cement at the base of the wing when you have it in place and divided if it is a divided wing.
in addition to some of the tips you’ve already received -
After you make your loose wraps and when you begin to increase tension, make sure you tightly pinch the hair between your fingers (while also holding the shank of the hook) to help hold the hair in place
Make sure you are spinning the dubbing on the right direction (clockwise for right-handed tier)
For the flies I tie (mostly 14 and smaller) if I cut a bundle of hair and twist it, the diameter of the hair should be about twice the diameter of the hook’s eye
I’ll just mention the dubbing issue. Like everyone else has mentioned, use far less than you think you need. I submitted a fly of the week awhile back (John’s Spider Spider) where I included a few shots to show just how little dubbing you need. I included those because it took me years of reading “use less than you think” before I finally realised just how little that is! It is so much easier when you’re doing little more than wrapping fuzzy thread.
Just out of curiosity which hand do you hold your bobbin in when you wrap? I’m a leftie and was told when I first got into tying that as a left-handed person wraps a dubbed thread around the hook shank the dubbing tends to “unravel” as the thread is actually being unwound by the wrapping process.
So all the advice you got so far is correct but if you’re a leftie you may have to stop your dubbing part-way thru and re-tighten the dubbing by either spinning the bobbin or re-twisting with your thumb and fingers. dubbing wax helps limit this problem somewhat but making sure you’re using as small an amount of dubbing as you can is probably the best answer.
At least this is the excuse I use when my dubbing comes out with less-than-satisfied results.
Polly Rosborough dubbed his “fuzzy nymphs” with a noodle… No thread in the dubbing at all. He would spin a tiny bit of dubbing and wrap it down to start. Then he would make a dubbing loop and wrap his thread forward. He then extended his noodle and wrapped it on like yarn… I watched him do it with mole fur… Then he counterwrapped the empty dubbing loop. This created his trademark fuzzy nymph body.
My hands are far larger than average and XL gloves rarely fit. Polly’s hands dwarfed mine… And he wrapped bare noodles…
Like most things, starting with something easy to dub and working down the “tyer-friendly” spectrum is the best way to ease the whole learning process.
art
For hair applications that dont require a great deal of finesse (simple bucktail streamers, etc.), you may want to try this until you get the hang of the traditional method:
Get your hair the way you want it, held in place above the hook with your thread ready to tie-in.
On your first wrap, instead of wrapping around the hair and the shank, do a loose loop around the clump of hair only.
Slowly tighten this loop. Usually, for me, this pulls the clump into one neat package, atop, or just above the hook.
If its too far above the hook, loosen thread tension a bit and move the hair down to the hook and retighten.
Once its where it needs to be, continue wrapping normally. This first wrap will keep your clump together, and subsequent wraps keep that wrap where you put it.
You’ve gotten great tips. I also use the 2x eye diameter as a rough gauge for Sparkle and Comparaduns, but Haystacks, originally a rough water pattern tend to use more hair).
A couple things you might also want to try on Comparadun and Sparkle Dun flies, after you tie in the wings, when you trim the butts, pull up the top third and trim, take a couple wraps, then the middle third, trim and a couple wraps, and then the bottom third, trim and take a couple wraps. This will stagger cut the butts making a smoother transition to the rest of the body, and will also help keep the wings in place.
And after you dub the body up to the base of the wing, pull the back third of the wing back, take a wrap, pull the middle third back and take a wrap, and then wrap in front to build a thread dam and apply a bit of dubbing to prop the wings back. The wraps through the wing will also keep the wings from rolling and cocking forward.
On really small flies, 20ish and below, I use CDC instead of deer hair. Hope this helps.
