What are the differences between fly tying thread and the threads you buy at the sewing store?
Most fly tying thread are waxed aren’t they?
Plus choice of diameter.
But, I imagine you don’t need wax and diameter wouldn’t really matter to tie flies. The old English didn’t use thread…just wire;)
dont drink the koolaid about cotton thread rotting. nobody has done a scientific study to verify how long it takes to deteriorate and rot.
sewing threads come in polyester, nylon, polypropolene, kevlar, nomex and even deniers just like tying thread
Cotton thread DOES rot…but most probably not before a fisherman has lost it in a bush or had a bass tear it to shreds in the case of a fly.
Poly and nylon are just that. And if your talking about the same “denier” in both…then the basic difference is the size of the spools!
i never said it DIDNT rot!
I said “dont drink the koolaid about cotton thread rotting. nobody has done a scientific study to verify how long it takes to deteriorate and rot.”
whenever folks talk about cotton thread they always say that it will rot but can never come up with any evidence on how long it takes to rot. thats what i’m saying.
my tshirts are 100% cotton and have gone through a number of wet and dry cycles and they are still in perfect shape and no rot.
just tell us how long it takes to rot. 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, 6 months, 1 year etc etc etc.
Just about every natural fibers will break over time. One thing to note is if you add any kind of head cement, the breakdown time should, in theory, take much longer, at least on the head yes, but that’s generally the most exposed part. I always thought that cotton thread would break down as well, but Norm’s t-shirt analogy makes you wonder why we don’t use cotton thread at the vise at all.
I think the main thing most tyers are concerned with is size (diameter/denier/strength etc)of the thread and the size of the spool versus what the actual thread is made of. If those larger sewing machine sized spools wont fit your bobbins, the thread could free and we still wouldn’t use it.
No one really cares if it’s Kevlar, gel-spun, polyester or nylon. Tyers want the strongest thread in the thinnest diameter or the flattest thread.
…yet and it’s been about six years since i’ve tied and not lost a few of the remaining leech patterns i tied one day and they’ve been used a lot not to mention slimed by many trout, lmb, smb, gill, crappie and a few yellow perch.
Cheers,
MontanaMoose
A fly tying thread is usually found on the Fly Tying Forum. The threads you find at the sewing store are most likely at JoAnn Fabric and places like that.
That wasnt a reply aimed back at you…just the opposite. It does rot as you state but how long does it take. As I stated it takes a long time. Only cotten things Ive ever seen that were totally shot were close to 60 years old at the time.
I have some of my dads army uniforms from WWII in the pacific that will tear as easily as tissue paper…but geeze…they’re 65 years old…
Cotten Army tarps made PRIOR to WWII…rotten as dead tree bark…but they are probably…??..close to almost 80 years old.
And the next time you want to fly off the handle…at least quote the total statement…"Cotton thread DOES rot…but most probably not before a fisherman has lost it in a bush or had a bass tear it to shreds in the case of a fly."
Just like with rod-wrapping thread, suppliers have chosen threads that meet requirements for consistency of color, diameter, twist, fiber length, strength, smoothness, etc that professional tiers have asked for. Also, the spools that fly tying thread typically come on are sized to fit the bobbins that we use (not necessary, in a pinch). From what I’ve seen in sewing notions shops, I’d have to put a lot of effort into picking out threads that would work as well as tying threads, and their prices wouldn’t be cheap enough to pay me for my time. Rotting would be the least of my concerns in picking thread. Bottom line is that I just don’t think it’s worth the trouble, when consistently high quality thread is as close as my local fly shop or online, but there’s no reason you couldn’t tie with other threads, especially if you were looking for unusual characteristics for a particular pattern, or if you just needed some thread quickly and no fly shop was immediately available.
-CC
Steven H. McGarthwaite, bless him, has written an article that will tell you all you ever needed to know about thread. Try this link.
Kirk
As you’ve likely figured out by now…
There are differences between some sewing threads and what is sold as fly tying thread.
However, there are many different ‘fly tying threads’ and some of the stuff you can find at the ‘sewing thread places’ is close if not identical to some of it.
To find out which is which, though, you’d have to play around with it a bit.
I’m in the middle of such a ‘test’ right now.
What I’ve found is that the ‘Coats and Clark Bobbin Thread’ is pretty close to ‘regular tying thread’. It’s a 70 Denier polyester thread, it’s not ‘flat’, nor is it waxed. Both of those I find to be ‘good’ things. I prefer a therad that doesn’t ‘divide’. Wax isn’t needed for the vast majority of my uses, and i have wax around if I need it. I’ve tied several dozen dozen simple patterns with it so far. I like it just fine. You do have to transfer it to spools that fit your bobbin (I use a cordless drill to do this)…my $8 spool of the stuff has 1800 yards on it…
I also regularly use the single strand nylon sewing threads, in both .004 and .005 diameters. Basically monofilament…comes in clear and ‘smoke’ that they sometimes call ‘black’. Great stuff for streamers and bass flies, a few other things.
I also buy the plain old polyester sewing threads, that stuff that’s a bit ‘fuzzy’ and comes in smaller spools-you can get it anywhere, in a wide range of colors to use for dry fly bodies (gave up dubbing on that kind of fly years ago). I ‘presoak’ the entire spool of this type of thead prior to use. Makes nice clean bodies with just a bit of ‘fuzziness’.
If you don’t want to experiment, feel the need for a large range of colors and sizes in your tying threads, or find the idea of such large quantities unsettling, you are probably better off with buying ‘tying thread’. I mostly use black, white, clear, or red thread and about 75% of my flies are tied with black.
If you do want to play with the different threads out there, please let us all know your results. Some of us live a ways from a fly shop…any other options are always helpful.
Buddy
This thread on sewing thread reminded me of somethin i did when i was younger around the time when i was in 6th grade… When i first started tying flies, they wasnt anything special to look at… rabit fur from the rabit cage, feathers from the chicken coop and thread… The thread was from my grandmas sewing chest… Hooks i got at the 5&dime store most of us called the 10 cents store; had to do odd jobs like bail hay, mow yards, paint fences or pull thistles & bull nettles out of cow pastures to have money to buy cheap hooks, usually bream hooks that are similar to a size 8 or 10 3x… The cotton sewing thread seemed then to work just fine even though it got a tiny bit fuzzy after catching several breams with a fly tied with it… I didnt have a fly rod of fly line back then but what i had was just a cane pole with a length of braided fishing line tied on and a little lard rubbed into the fishing line would allow it to float fer around 2 hours…
JoAnn’s ad today…looks like their threads incuding Guterman are 50% off Fri/Sat/Sunday…maybe even a coupon on top of that…
Just for sake of the OP who doesn’t seem to be versed in the niceties of thread, the qualities that Buddy desires (not flat, not waxed, doesn’t divide) are not suitable for for all flies or all tiers.
If you’re tying presentation level classic wet flies, streamers or salmon flies, the ability to flatten the thread is a must for a smooth head. A waxed thread will catch on the hook with fewer wraps, something that’s important in tiny flies. And it’s impossible to make a “split thread” dubbing loop with thread that doesn’t divide.
They make different types of tying thread for a good reason: they all have their place. At a fly shop with knowledgeable staff can help you decide which thread is best for which applications. You’re not going to find that in a fabric shop. That being said, if you know what you’re looking for, you might be able to find it as sewing thread.
As I’m sure others have, I started off with cotton sewing thread (and no bobbin). At least a few of those flies are still around 40+ years later, so cotton won’t necessarily degrade within the useful lifetime of a fly. (Silk rots, too, but it’s still used as tying thread.)