I have a large supply of turkey tail feathers given to me by a hunter.
What is your opinion in treating them with a light coating of lacquer spray in order to have lasting wing cases on nymphs?
Or would it be better to just coat the wind case with “Sally’s Hard As Nails” when the nymph is completed?
Charlie Craven suggests tying them in by the butt so they don’t split. Been doing this for a long time…I sometimes coat 'em with Dave’s Flexament…
http://www.flyfishusa.com/fly-tying/head-cement.htm#Dave’s
PT/TB
I use, and have recommend to our club’s tying course students for years, Krylon Clear Fixatve. This is the spray that the artist’s who work in charcoal, pencil, and chalk use to coat their finished pieces with to prevent smudging. Be sure to spray both sides of the feather. It dries almost immediately. This is one that I do use outside, as I find the solvent fumes to be irritating; kind’a takes your breath away.
Frank
PS: NFI!
think “thin skin”
solves alot of fixative/adhesive problems!
If I’m going to use anything on the wing cases to make them more durable, I much prefer treating them after the fly is completed. I used Krylon for many years and have had them split while tying them in or when pulling them forward over the thorax after spraying them (my fault, I’m sure). Not that this is always a bad thing - it makes for more of an emerging nymph look - but, I would prefer to create that look on purpose instead of by accident. The main reason was that I found that the stiff, treated feather didn’t conform to the thorax as tightly and naturally as the softer, unvarnished feather did. I now lightly brush on a little bit of thinned head cement or Flexament after the fly is completely, if I treat it at all.
Joe
I’m with Normand, Thin Skin solves a lot of that and is much easier to work with. I don’t use much turkey for wing-cases for the very reasons mentioned above by Joe. Also, the turkey seems to be a bit bulky, even if you tie it in by the tips. Traditionalists will skewer me for this I suppose.
Kelly.
peacock herl makes an excellent wing case also!
Unfortunately, it’s not Thin Skin season and his buddy left him with turkey feathers instead.
FWIW, I don’t bother treating wingcases at all. I’m going to lose the fly one way or another before I need to worry about the case splitting.
To answer the question, I don’t coat my feather wingcases with anything. In fact I believe they should look a little hairy (natural). However at the risk of hijacking the thread, I will add that I much prefer Phentex in brown or black, or audio cassette tape for wingcases (and on cassette provides a lifetime of material - comes in both brown and black, put the shiny side out).
You can pretreat the feathers with artist’s fixative or thinned flexement. It will hold them together for awhile but won’t add a lot of durability. Since you have a large supply, I’d treat some and try them to see if you think it’s worthwhile.
I am pretty sure this is misinterpreted somehow. Tying a wingcase in by the butts is a sure way to have it split.
not according to charlies book! page 76, step 19 where hes tying a gold ribbed hares ear
I use Turkey tail in almost all of my wing cases. If I treat an entire feather, I use the Minwax fast drying clear poly (blue white can I believe?). If I’m only tying a few flies, I tie them in first and use Sally’s Hard as Nails to coat afterwards. I tie tip or butt based on the thickness I’m looking for.
I usually use a slip of turkey tail or pheasant tail that has been previously sprayed with Grumbacher Tuffilm Fixative, which you can get at an artist supply store. It’s available in high gloss, satin, or flat. I use only enough to keep the fibers from separating when I’m tying them in. I don’t “soak” the feather with the spray, but I do spray both sides of the tail feather. It allows the fibers to retain their “fuzzy” surface. Krylon Clear works ok, but tends to flatten out that fuzziness.
I also use peacock herls. I don’t like thin skin - no fuzziness - - unless I’m doin’ poxyback nymphs like copper johns.
Hi Supersenior,
I spray the back side of the turkey tail feathers with spray lacquer lightly, a few light coats. The purpose of the spary laqcuer in my method is to seal the feather to some extent. I then use thinned down fleximent, or shoe goo thinned with toluene to a moderately thin consistency to go over the top of the spray lacquer coats. Again this is on the back side of the feather.
The reason for this technique is that on many of my nymphs, I do not want the wingcase to shine. If I use the thinned flexment directly on the feather without the thin coats of lacquer, the fleximent wicks through the feather and makes it shine. If you get the right amount of fleximent on the feather, and it often takes several of the thinned coats, it will make the feather pretty tough, and the barbs do not separate when you stretch them over the back of the thorax to form the wingcase. The fleximent adds “flexible strength” to the feather section, so it stretches and flexes rather than becoming stiff and brittle.
The difficulties I run into are getting the right amount of lacquer and the right amount of fleximent, and I tend to get impatient and want to use the feather before it has the right amount. To put the thinned fleximent on the back of the feather I use a cotton swab soaked in the fluid.
If you do not thin the fleximent and put it on “as is” it forms a thick heavy layer, a thing I want to avoid.
Regards,
Gandolf
I found that nail polish will cause the feather to warp along the edges give you a “Fly Nun” appearance.
Thin Sho Goop would work so will Dave’s Fleximent which is basically the same stuff.
There is another recent posingt about Dave’s Fleximent and other’s comments about other ways of making your own fleximent. ~Parnelli
I use this and it’s always worked for me - I spray both sides as well too
Jeanne
Another option…
Think about why you want to coat the feather. The first two things that come to mind are controling splitting and sealling the fibers for durability. However, for the featehr to form the type of wing case you want, it needs to be flexible.
Lacquers and fixatifs are made for coating/sealing ‘hard’ surfaces. They aren’t made to flex, so they can be brittle and don’t flex well with the feather. I always got those little white ‘edges’ when I stripped out the sections of feather after using lacquer.
Flexament works, but is thick andrequires brushing. Doing that to a whole feather, much less a lot of them, is time consuming and hard to get even. You can thin it, but that’s always been a pain to do and playing with all those solvents and chemicals can be messy at best.
The folks that make Plasti-Dip, a rubberized type coating made for tool handles, now make a spray on version. It comes in clear. It stays flexible, seals the feather, and you can choose to spray only one side, or both. The feathers still ‘strip out’ cleanly into the proper sections, and they still handle on the fly like untreated feathers.
If you want to treat a dozen feathers, you can lay them on some paper towels or wx paper and spray them all in about a minute.
I got mine at Ace Hardware. I’m sure you can think of other applications for this stuff, but it’s absolutely perfect for coating turkey feathers for making wing cases.
Buddy
Wow, Buddy!! Thank you! I’m off to Ace hrdwr to see if they have it (in this store). A friend gave me bunches of turkey feathers, and having tried out most of the other remedies here, was sorta dreading what came next! NO MORE!!
I would think you could coat the ends of your hackle winders so the ends would hold better and not drop the feather/biot/herl at most inopportune times!!
Crossing fingers … I’m off!