Just a couple of points which may be of interest.
In former times, “wax” was used on flies for various purposes. The main purpose was for “arming” the gut or horsehair link, which meant whipping it to a blind hook, but the substance used for this was not “wax” as such, it is a special mixture of white pine resin ( when purified, this is known as “rosin”, and is the same substance used to treat horsehair violin strings, in powder form by athletes to give them more “grip” when weightlifting etc, ) and various other substances which affect the consistency and degree of stickiness.
You can find some recipes for this here;
http://globalflyfisher.com/tiebetter/dubbingwax/index.html
This substance can be made quite sticky, and it also polymerises in time, making a fairly strong bond. It waterproofs the silk, which was used more or less exclusively for fly-dressing at the times in question, and would otherwise rot, and it also changes the colour of the silk. Bright yellow silk when waxed with clear wax turns to a medium olive translucence.
“Cobblers wax” is not wax either, it is coal-tar pitch. This was used in Scotland quite a lot for darkening silk a lot more. It is indeed still used in various forms by bagpipers for treating the reeds on their instruments. Cobblers and saddlers used it for treating thread to make it waterproof. It is difficult to use, is normally a hard block of brittle black tar, and in warm weather it will run and make an awful mess. It was also commonly used to waterproof rod bindings, ( rod pieces were spliced and bound together with string, and then coated with pitch), and some people used it for dressing flies as well.
If you want to achieve the same effect without the mess, then take a candle and a white china plate, hold the plate above the candle until you have a ring of “soot” on the plate. This is very fine and fairly pure carbon, and is the substance once commonly used as a colouring agent for a number of things, and referred to as “lampblack”.
You can mix this with the wax to darken it as desired. This will discolour your fingers and anything else it gets on to, so be careful with it. I don?t use this at all, but I know a couple of people who do.
Pure beeswax, which is a light yellow brown colour may be used for waxing thread, but it wont help you to dub anything, as it is not sticky at all. it merely changes the thread colour and waterproofs it to an extent.
This is beeswax;
http://flytyingforum.com/mike/Materials/Other/Silk/silk.html
http://flytyingforum.com/mike/Materials/Other/Wax/wax.html
http://flytyingforum.com/mike/Materials/Other/Silk/Observations/observations.html
You may also use ordinary white candle wax ( Paraffin wax) for changing thread colour if you wish, but this also will not stick anything to the thread, and will often give somewhat lighter colours, as it is of course pure “white” ( translucent).
In order to dub properly in the normal manner, you need to form a “noodle” of dubbing around the the thread, and then wind this on. This is controlled by the texture and length of the dubbing, no wax or other substances are required, although you may use them if you wish.
In order to “touch dub”, which involves using a sticky thread and fine dubbing, and is done by merely “touching” the sticky thread with the dubbing, you may use an ordinary office glue stick, like “Pritt” etc. Just wipe some on the thread, touch your fine dubbing to it, and wind the dubbing on.
It is not waterproof, and it does not need to be, as the dubbing fibres are trapped by the thread. Some will fall off when the fly is fished, but this does not matter.
If you want to use bright yellow silk, coloured olive translucent, for instance, and also touch dub it. Then use ordinary beeswax or paraffin wax to colour your thread, and then use the pritt stick to make it sticky for touch dubbing. The glues washes off as soon as you fish the fly.
TL
MC
