There was an old post on this, but I wanted to clarify something. I have a few packages of stripped quills. They are quite brittle. I do soak them in water before using, but sometimes forget. I saw some suggestions to soak in mineral oil, fabric softener or hair conditioner. Will any of these processes impact applying UV gel or varnish?
Any advice is appreciated.
The old standby "additive" taught to me back in the day by Theodore Gordon was a few drops of glycerin (available at drug stores) added to warm water * for soaking purposes.
This soaking is done immediately before tying so the stripped peacock eye goes in a bowl or coffee mug with water & glycerin on my desk top FIRST, then I start assembling the other materials.
"Teddy" (as I called him) and I would always varnish the finished quill bodies with head cement. I assume that by the time we finished the fly the quill has sufficiently dried. Regardless, we never had issues, but I can't speak to mineral oil, fabric softener, hair conditioner or UV gels.
FWIW - The old method of stripping an entire peacock eye chemically involved using bleach in the striping mixture which made them brittle but had the benefit of enhancing the light/dark contrast on the stripped quills. However they get even more brittle as they age so a longer pre-soak in the water/glycerin mixture was required if they are older or purchased pre-stripped.
Eventually I jumped ship entirely on chemically stripped quills and used the much lengthier "pencil eraser" stripping method. It takes longer, but I always prepare my materials in advance to speed up my tying so it is something I am used to doing with other materials. When I strip quills with an eraser I often forgo the soaking unless I notice cracking on the quill as I wrap.
* If you go the soaking route, warm water works better than cold. When I "soaked" I put the quills in a coffee mug with a bit of glycerin. That mug gets placed on
one of these to keep it warm which is conveniently always sitting on my fly tying desk for those times when I'm drinking coffee...
😉
Good luck!
