Thread and more thread

All about flies Fly Tying
1

I basically tie quick effective guide flies ( like in basic and not necessarily pretty) and have always used uni thread. Any opinions on the various thread products in todays market.

2

Montana fly company is thinner for the “ought” and also stronger. It’s probably 2/3-3/4 the diameter and 50% stronger than the Uni equivalent. It is replacing Uni wholesale as I use up my stock.

3

Uni is still my go to thread, there are threads that may be a bit more flashy but Uni is a good tough thread.

4

Uni’s great for a lot of things but I can’t do any split thread apps with it. I’ve got a lot of Danville 6/0 and some UTC 70 & 140 for that (and other stuff). Need to check out the MFC products. For saltwater it’s mostly flat-waxed nylon or monofilament.

Regards,
Scott

5

Scott,

Uni is certainly not the greatest for doing split thread, but (and you may already know/do this anyway) at a pinch it can be made to work. You have to break the ‘bonding’ by running it through nail-pressed-to-pad a couple times.

Cheers,
Hans W

6

Hans,

I’ve done it a few times; now I try to make sure I have a spool of Danville or UTC in brown or black wherever I go so I can avoid that experience ever happening again.

Regards,
Scott

7

Like others, I prefer any flat thread over Unithread. Danville 6/0 and Flymaster+ handles most of my tying. Have also played with MFC threads and they perform well, and Benecchi is a favorite too.

8

I am not nearly as accomplished a tyer as many of the guys I have seen post their flies here but I use monofilament sewing thread a lot. As I heard a Wyoming fly shop owner say on a video it hides a lot of sins and the color is alway right, although I do use the dark also. It has to be waxed to hold dubbing well but is small diameter, strong and can be colored with a permanent felt tip if color is needed. It is also readily available when there is not a flyshop around.

9

The more I use, the more I like:

PT/TB :wink:

10

Choosing thread

Here are some general rules.

  1. There is no correlation between denier and the “aught” rating system. The “aught” system is good for a single manufacturer. A 6/0 from one manufacturer may be a thicker or thinner thread compared to a 6/0 from another manufacturer system. See comparison of Gudebrod and Benecchi below.

  2. Breaking strength varies with the material and its diameter. For example, nylon thread from different manufacturers of the same diameter will have near identical breaking strength. See comparison of Gudebrod and Benecchi below.

The comparison between 8/0 Gudebrod vs 8/0 and 12/0 Benecchi shows how you cannot rely on the “aught” system. The 8/0 Benecchi is much thicker than Gudebrod. When equal thickness threads are compared, the 8/0 Gudebrod and 12/0 Benecchi, the breaking strengths are identical. Don’t be fooled by the “aught” system.

Manufacturer/aught/material/denier/breaking strength/thickness in .000

  1. Nylon and polyester thread have about the same breaking strength. GSP is much stronger.

  2. There is NO FREE LUNCH. You cannot make a stronger thinner thread from identical materials. All you can do is to label a thread as being thinner using the “aught” system to make buyers think your thicker thread is as thin as a competitors and stronger.

  3. Denier within as single material gives a true comparison of thickness. A lower denier will be thinner. Identical deniers of identical material will have near identical breaking strengths.

  4. The way to pick thread is to pick the material and then pick whether you want the thread twisted or flat.

Here are recommendations:

  1. I prefer a flat thread. It can be used for split thread dubbing loops. It lies flatter and is less bulky when wraps are stacked. It is less apt to cut through materials such as foam. It can be twisted when you need a twisted thread. If you do buy a twisted thread, get a non-bonded thread that can be untwisted.

  2. I prefer polyester over nylon. It has less stretch. Nylon has brighter colors when you need a bright thread.

  3. I use GSP thread only when I need extreme strength, for example, when flaring deer hair.

  4. Stick with a single manufacturer at first to get familiar with the properties of the thread. For a newbie, I suggest nylon since it stretches before breaking and it gives you more “feedback” when you are reaching the thread limit.

Frontrangeanglers.com - Choosing the Right Thread

http://cdflyfishers.org/Fly Tying/The introduction of denier.pdf

http://mvff.tripod.com/Reference/Denier.pdf

Here are two thread charts from the articles above.

11

I am with Longs with this, having used MFC 8/0 for over a year now. Stronger and lays flatter than Uni, no build up, very nice thread.
Gene

12

I’ve tied thousands, if not tens of thousands, of flies using Uni and don’t see any need to change that. Although I occasionally get a bad spool (generally on sale, which should tell me something), it does what I need it to do, comes in the colors I want to use, and is readily available. I do use GSP and kevlar for some specific flies and have lots of spools of other stuff that I bought, tried, and put in the box.

13

For many years I used Uni with a selection of other threads for the times I needed them. I found them to be consistent and very good. When UTC came on the marker I tried it and liked it. For some applications it replaced Uni. However I soon hit a problem. The spools they used in the early days were made of two parts. I ended up loosing lots of spools when the thread got caught in the split between the two halves. Danville’s thread isn’t as generally available here as other makes. I can usually find it if I want it but it means a search.

At that time I had started to use a lot of split thread techniques, UTC, as it is not bonded is better for these techniques than Uni. Though you can use Uni for this technique it sometimes becomes a problem.

Then I moved to the Highlands of Scotland. Living here I tie more salmon and loch trout flies. That meant a change in the colours of thread I used. I find Uni is not as vibrant as UTC. I suspect this is due to the difference in nature between polyester and nylon. For those reasons UTC has replaced Uni in my tying. I still tie with Uni, but I have old stock that has kept me going for the last few years. For the last three years I haven’t bought a spool of Uni.

There is one other thread to throw into the mix. Before I let you into the secret lets just look at buying thread for fly tying. When you buy a spool of tying thread you are buying 3 components and a service. A spool, a label and the thread itself, the service is putting the thread onto the spool. The most expensive of these parts is the cost of the spool. Then there is the cost of putting it onto the spool. I wouldn’t be surprised to find the label costs more than the thread itself. Fly tying is a small market. There is not a massive demand for fly tying thread. Even the likes of Uni, Danville’s and UTC will not be ordering thread by the ton of a colour at a time.

At a wholesale haberdashery suppliers I found Guttermann Scala. As a tying thread it is superb. It is finer than Uni 8/0 but stronger than Uni 6/0. It isn’t bonded, so lies flat and splits easily. Better still was the cost. It cost 9UKP ($15) a spool. That is for a 15 000 meter spool. That is the same as 75 200 meter spools of Uni. Uni is around ?2.20 a spool here. The same quantity of Uni would be 165UKP. I built a spooling machine! The problem was obtaining spools to put it on. If I bought a spool and spent time loading it I would have to sell them at the same price as Uni to show a profit.

Then the supplier I used stopped stocking Scala. I wasn’t using enough to justify the expense of sourcing it elsewhere. So it was back to buying small spools. I did look at buying thread in a different way after that.