questions on tying and stuff.

I got my old Uncle's Fly tying box.
Everything in it is Hand made, home made or scroundged, salvaged or otherwise something that will do, but just barely.
He made his own Bobbin and it works pretty good but if the thread is the gauzy stuff it breaks. Too much tension and it's not adjustable.

He did have Bobbin Threaders though. What a grand invention that is!

I'd swear there was a Whip tool in there when I got it, but I cannot find it now. So I just whip by hand and glue the whip down when I'm through screwing around with it.

No GLue! What I did last night when I was experiementing was to dip a Toothpick into the neck of my 'GOOP' tube and used that to seal the head whip.

Then I tried to put a 'fur collar' on a white Jig. I tried to split a feather and do a 'Palmer tie' around his neck.

Well.....when I got done It was such a mess I had to call it "Haystack Calhoun"! :o:rolleyes:

So I thought I'd ask about this Palmer tying.
How do you prepare the feather for that?
And what Glue do you guys use?

Also, what's the Mustache Wax for? He has two tubes of it in there.

first off, congratulations on makin the plunge! what you described is called hackle, palmered hackle is slightly different in that it starts at the back of the fly or jig and spirals toward the front, like a wooly worm fly. just select the right size feather and clip it off just above the fuzzy portion, then strip a 1/32 inch section at the butt end. don't split the feather, just tie the butt end in at the front of the jig. ok, here is a tip. leave yourself enough room at the front of the jig for this hackle wrap, in other words if you crowd the front of the jig it will be all bunched up. ok, once I have the butt end of the feather tied in, I wrap it around the hook, away from me, in the same direction I'm wrapping my thread. your feather wraps should be almost on top of the last wrap, I even wrap on top of it at times, when you get the desired fullness, tie the feather down and trim it off. I know a master panfish popping bug maker, that uses saddle hackles which are real long, on his poppers instead of rubber legs. he told me he uses two compleat feathers, and thats all in a space of about 1/8 inch. I'm not that good but just shows what can be done with practice. the feather splitting thing you mentioned is done on tiny trout flies where they want minimum buildup of the hackle. hope this helps

when you wrap the hackle, it has to stand out from the hook, so you want to tie the butt of the feather on the hook in that position or close to it. If you start wrapping and the hackle lays down flat, and you can't seem to get it to do right, then untie the feather from the hook and retie it at a slightly different angle and see if that helps.

There are some great jig tying videos in the archives. I'd begin by looking at those basic videos that already have been posted and go from there.

http://www.crappie.com/crappie/archi...ng-videos.html

http://www.crappie.com/crappie/jig-t...tying-jig.html