I have read on one of the many online fly fishing forums I frequent that placing red cedar chips in the tying materials container(s) is a good alternative to mothballs as a bug deterrent. I located some red cedar chips yesterday, but they only come in huge 30 lb bags. So before making a purchase of something I will most likely never find the end of, has anyone tried this method, and does it actually hold water??
And what do you guys use as wing/tail material on your Catskill style Hendricksons/Red Quills?
You can find small blocks of aromatic cedar in the closet section of some stores. I have seen them at Lowe’s. It is probably a mild deterrent. Not as effective as moth crystals but non toxic and smells better.
Eastern Redcedar, actually a juniper (Juniperus virginiana) contains an essential oil (polyterpenoid) known as juniperine that is somewhat toxic to some insects and annoying to most.
I don’t know what fish think about it.
I would look for brightly colored heartwood as an indicator of higher levels of juniperine, but that might not be a hard and fast rule.
I was fortunate enough to have a behind the scenes tour of the Field Museum in Chicago. When we got to the Zoology department the guide should us row upon row of bird and animal skins in drawers, some of them stored for over 100 years. I asked the curator what they used to prevent bug infestation. Answer- moth crystals.
Awww, com’on! I wanted to see Ahab try to stuff all that cedar into his fly tying boxes!! I get the cedar blocks from Target (or KMart, what ever!) and they work great! Fish haven’t seemed to mind. And no bugs! And it smells pretty good too.
If you like to gamble then use the ceder. The best protection comes from products that contain paradichlorobenzene. These products kill bugs and their eggs. I have too much money in fur and feathers to chance a bug invasion. In over 40 years of collecting fur and feathers, I have never had a bug problem.
For 15 years I’ve used wooden Cedar balls I purchase from local hardware stores. My feathers are fine and I catch fish so I’m happy. Mothballs work for sure, but they also stink-up everything in my apartment.
Thanks for the responses. I have a serious aversion to moth balls, so I think I’ll try to find some smaller bundles of red cedar next time I’m near a store I suspect of carrying the stuff. Thanks for the testimonies and good to hear it actually works for some of you before I loose a good supply off stuff to the insect world.
Ten years ago I built a mission style chest to store my fly tying materials, and made all of the drawer bottoms out of aromatic cedar, as well as lining the inside of the cabinet case with some leftover cedar paneling like you use to line a closet. The joints are all solid, so there is no cedar smell until you open a drawer - and then it’s like opening your grandmother’s cedar chest. No problems so far. My last (and only) bug infestation came over 20 years ago when I was tanning my own deer hides (hair on, of course) and storing them in Rubbermaid containers. Now if I process my own skins I’ll store them in a rubber container with mothballs for a couple of months before letting them anywhere near my other materials.
Al Campbell recommended No Pest Strips…so that’s what I’ve been using…they can be cut smaller and I find them essentially odorless…my understanding is that they are about as lethal as they come…
was at Big Lots today and saw some smaller plastic containers. They were brown in color and i never saw anything like them before. i read the label and it said they were cedar containers. i opened one up and i could smell it. It said that it would keep moths and silverfish out. They were $5.00 a piece. I don’t know if they are still maing these or the ones i saw were “leftovers” being resold.
Sorry Capt. Ahab,
always used moth ball/crystals in thous old fashioned tea steeper’s. Never had a bug problem, way toooooo much $$$$$$$$ to trust anything else. As for the Hendrickson & Red Quill: Med. Dun hen & Med-Dark Dun Microfibetts or paint brush fibers.
Simple the essential oil that carries the redcedar fragrance is, in fact, an oil, one could probably find a source for small bottles of the stuff and then apply as desired. Please note that, as with plutonium, a little bit goes a long way.
Well, in Nashville you could probably get it from the whoesaler who collects it from the folks that distill it. (Tennessee and distilling seem to be rather interlinked, don’t they?) For everybody else, I might try shops that specialize in potpourri, “notions”, and all of that genre of goods. In other words, I have no idea.
After a quick whirl thru Google, it appears that a natural healing store or that section of a health food store might be the way to go. One of the site referred to it as a monoterpene. I thought that one my old chemistry books had it listed as a polyterpene. Oh well, who cares.