There are lots of various hackle pliers available now. Here are some of the pliers I use for various things;
Quite a few people prefer rotary hackle pliers for a number of things, here is an easy way to make some. Get one of the small “English” type hackle pliers. ( Bottom right in the above photo).Now all you need is a key ring, and a barrel swivel. Slip the barrel swivel over the hackle pliers, and then the other end over the key-ring.
Voila! Rotary hackle pliers:
I have used a “snap-link” here, as the last lot of these I made up were snapped up by people from my fly-dressing class, and I have no barrel swivels to hand right now. The somewhat larger stainless steel barrel swivels as used for sea-fishing etc are the best. Quite a few people get on much better with these pliers than with the “normal” type.
You can use a handle instead of a key ring if you like. If you want “shock absorption” use a small spring between the barrel swivel and the keyring. or handle.
Practically all hackle pliers benefit by slipping a piece of rubber or silicone rubber tubing over one or both jaws. This improves the grip, prevents them slipping, and also prevents the jaw edges form damaging hackle etc.
It is also used in lots of things like modern electrical appliances, ( flexible cable insulation) and many other things, so it should not be too hard to find.
A vendor at the Somerset show (French speaking?) sells a rotary plier using a small rubber band to hold the tension while winding. It works quite well in two sizes and inexpensive too I might add
By the way, if you absolutely can not find the tubing, then you can glue ( superglue, cyano-acrylate) a piece of flat rubber to the jaws, but the tubing is better.
Though after Mike’s conversion it won’t matter…if I were using that style of pliers I would want them to have the finger plates …makes a big difference…at least to me.
I’ve always used heat shrinkable sleeving (tubing) from Radio Shack as a easily applied covering for one of the plier tips. It’s available in a great variety of sizes and shrinks with the haet from a match.
I use the small rubber tubing that comes with a bicycle repair kit - is this any good? it does seem to work quite well. It was the only tubing I could find that was small enough to stay on the jaws.
You can still convert your finger tab hackle pliers to Mike’s idea by installing a split ring onto the hackle pliers below the finger tabs and then the barrel swivel and key ring onto the split ring.
