Tying adhesives and glues

[Baron]

Shakey and Frederick, Is Z-ment okay as the finish as a varnish or does it get ucky without a varnish?

 

[afishinado]

Bamboozle wrote:
Keep in mind low viscosity CA (super glues) will wick into materials creating a "hard spot" which may or may not be desirable, depending on what you are gluing. For example, it can wick into hair & feathers and kill the action of the fibers.

Certain brands also have a tendency to "bloom" (chlorosis) which is when the glue leaves a whitish residue around the bond area. Blooming is exacerbated by moisture so putting damp flies constructed with CA back into a fly box can be a problem.

I realize I may be in the minority on this, but wicking & chlorosis as well as inadvertently gluing things I don't want glued are the reasons I gave up on CA for fly tying decades ago.

BTW - Sally Hanson is nail polish, more closely related to a lacquer which can be thinned with a solvent. Super glues are cyanoacrylates (CA), a COMPLETELY different thing from nail polish.

People like Sally Hanson because it is cheap, readily available, you can thin it and it is a decent head cement for fly tying. It has a much longer curing time and has a fraction of the bonding ability of CA, but depending on what you need, it can be ideal.

Some people have an issue with solvent based lacquers because of the smell which they feel will put off fish. I've also heard the same things for decades about materials stored with moth crystals.

I use both and never, ever felt at a disadvantage fishing with flies tied with smelly materials & head cement...

...I have plenty of other more realistic things I can blame when the fishing is slow. ;-)

Baron wrote:
Shakey and Frederick, Is Z-ment okay as the finish as a varnish or does it get ucky without a varnish?

Read what Bamboozle wrote above.

Z-ment is a waterproof super glue (CA) and is an adhesive which sticks stuff together.

Coatings to finish off heads or wing cases or make "epoxy" flies like Sally Hanson's, fly tyers head cement, UV coating or even clear epoxy.

Sally Hanson's works okay to coat small flies. I use UV coating when coating a few flies but it is expensive. For coating really big flies and/or multiple flies I mix up epoxy and use a drying motor to let them cure.

HTH

 

[troutbert]

shakey wrote:
I use spar varnish , sally Hanson’s and super glue.

For my own flies I tend to not use any glue or cement

I don't use any glues, cements etc. on my flies. I did in the past, but realized it's not needed. And I dislike the vapors, the stuff leaking, the stuck caps, the stuff hardening up, spending money on gunk...

If you whip finish your flies, they won't come loose.

Regarding all those fancy streamers using UV cures etc. Do they catch more fish than a simple Wooly Bugger or rabbit strip Zonker?

 

[afishinado]

troutbert wrote:

shakey wrote:
I use spar varnish , sally Hanson’s and super glue.

For my own flies I tend to not use any glue or cement

I don't use any glues, cements etc. on my flies. I did in the past, but realized it's not needed. And I dislike the vapors, the stuff leaking, the stuck caps, the stuff hardening up, spending money on gunk...

If you whip finish your flies, they won't come loose.

Regarding all those fancy streamers using UV cures etc. Do they catch more fish than a simple Wooly Bugger or rabbit strip Zonker?

As I wrote in a previous post, I too rarely use head cement on a whipped finished fly head.

The flies I referred to such as "epoxy flies" and other coated flies are more for bass or musky and some saltwater flies.

Most trout flies, at least the ones I fish, need no coating other than coating a wing case or streamer head.

The exception are some of the newer Euro nymphs which employ a coating to allow them to sink faster.

 

[Baron]

I've still not ever caught a fish other than Pickerel on various colors of Wooly Buggers. Buggers will likely not be in my box next year.


I see a theme developing and that is to tie the heads more carefully so that once whip-finished you're done. I do get tired of the shiny goopy look

As time goes by I'm liking traditionally tied flies more and more but I can't imagine using non-glued flies in my pickerel filled lakes.
Thanks for the help.....all of you, thanks.

afishinado wrote:

troutbert wrote:

shakey wrote:
I use spar varnish , sally Hanson’s and super glue.

For my own flies I tend to not use any glue or cement

I don't use any glues, cements etc. on my flies. I did in the past, but realized it's not needed. And I dislike the vapors, the stuff leaking, the stuck caps, the stuff hardening up, spending money on gunk...

If you whip finish your flies, they won't come loose.

Regarding all those fancy streamers using UV cures etc. Do they catch more fish than a simple Wooly Bugger or rabbit strip Zonker?

As I wrote in a previous post, I too rarely use head cement on a whipped finished fly head.

The flies I referred to such as "epoxy flies" and other coated flies are more for bass or musky and some saltwater flies.

Most trout flies, at least the ones I fish, need no coating other than coating a wing case or streamer head.

The exception are some of the newer Euro nymphs which employ a coating to allow them to sink faster.

 

[Bamboozle]

I've been using "head cement" on the heads of my flies since day one and probably I will never stop out of force of habit.

What has been an eternal struggle is finding a brand I like for everyday use and unfortunately what I like (Griff's Thin) is no longer available. Fortunately I have a few bottles... Harry Murray's is a decent substitute. I will add that the WORST head cement I ever used is the stuff Wapsi peddles. It starts to dry out about a minute after you order it or buy it in a fly shop.

I keep my head cement in a regular old bottle with an original brass Renzetti Applicator Jar cap, which is similar to the new version. When used as directed, my head cement stays thin for years.

What I don't understand is folks using glues to secure things like dumbbell eyes or other stuff that have a tendency to rotate on a smooth hook shank. Even an epoxy or CA bond will break easily if you twist stuff. Maybe dumbbell eyes or coarse hair won't spin as badly when you tie in your other materials, but once it gets whacked around fishing all bets are off.

The best advice I ever got was from the late, great Chris Helm who talked me into trying gel spun thread (GSP) for stubborn stuff. I bought a ceramic bobbin and some GSP and never looked back. I put on a base of wraps, coat it with head cement and lash on whatever with GSP and a ton of pressure and it is solid as a rock.

I will say that I do like some of the UV stuff for coating things like painted eyes but I'm not crazy about the slight opacity of it when cured. Epoxy looks better, but it chips off so I deal with the cloudiness if I want to protect my paint job.

 

[afishinado]

Bamboozle wrote:
I've been using "head cement" on the heads of my flies since day one and probably I will never stop out of force of habit.

What has been an eternal struggle is finding a brand I like for everyday use and unfortunately what I like (Griff's Thin) is no longer available. Fortunately I have a few bottles... Harry Murray's is a decent substitute. I will add that the WORST head cement I ever used is the stuff Wapsi peddles. It starts to dry out about a minute after you order it or buy it in a fly shop.

I keep my head cement in a regular old bottle with an original brass Renzetti Applicator Jar cap, which is similar to the new version. When used as directed, my head cement stays thin for years.

What I don't understand is folks using glues to secure things like dumbbell eyes or other stuff that have a tendency to rotate on a smooth hook shank. Even an epoxy or CA bond will break easily if you twist stuff. Maybe dumbbell eyes or coarse hair won't spin as badly when you tie in your other materials, but once it gets whacked around fishing all bets are off.

The best advice I ever got was from the late, great Chris Helm who talked me into trying gel spun thread (GSP) for stubborn stuff. I bought a ceramic bobbin and some GSP and never looked back. I put on a base of wraps, coat it with head cement and lash on whatever with GSP and a ton of pressure and it is solid as a rock.

I will say that I do like some of the UV stuff for coating things like painted eyes but I'm not crazy about the slight opacity of it when cured. Epoxy looks better, but it chips off so I deal with the cloudiness if I want to protect my paint job.

Agree that glue is no substitute for tight wraps. In fact it's more likely to spin from the gluing it when the bond is broken.

I discovered that my flies tied and not finished with head cement never come unraveled. So I skip applying it to my flies and worrying about the head cement clogging up the eyes of my hook. I believe head cement was used when tyers just finished their flies with half hitches. Whip finishing keeps them together just fine for me.

 

[RLeep2]

>>What I don't understand is folks using glues to secure things like dumbbell eyes or other stuff that have a tendency to rotate on a smooth hook shank. Even an epoxy or CA bond will break easily if you twist stuff. Maybe dumbbell eyes or coarse hair won't spin as badly when you tie in your other materials, but once it gets whacked around fishing all bets are off.>>

I'll politely but emphatically dissent with this. I fish a lot of Murray Marauders for smallmouth where the dumbell eyes have been CA glued into place. I'd guesstimate my spin percentage to be maybe 2-3% at most. With very, very few exceptions, they stay put through the entire life of the fly, which on average is about a dozen fish or so. I know this because I have a pile of about 50 of the things on my tying desk that have succumbed to other rigors like an unwinding palmered hackle or a destroyed ostrich herl tail. So, being cheap, I sometimes try to reclaim and re-use the dumbbell eyes. Even this usually requires some serious time with a pair of pliers and more than a few expletives.

If your dumbbell eyes are not staying put, you may not be holding your mouth right when you tie the fly. More often than not, this is the problem...🙂

 

[afishinado]

Baron wrote:
I've still not ever caught a fish other than Pickerel on various colors of Wooly Buggers. Buggers will likely not be in my box next year.

Wooly Buggers work well for pickerel and bass.

Your buggers may be too big for the panfish.

If I ran into a a FFer without buggers in his box, I would assume he is either a rookie, or ran out of them from catching fish all day, or is a fool 😛

In the spring, I suggest you try buggy looking things for sunnies. Hares ears work great. There are many nymphs in the water in the spring which eventually hatch out. Later in the season many fish feed more on minnows than nymphs which are not as numerous in the water that time of year.

 

[RisenFly]

The need for "head cement" on flies is not always needed, but these UV glues are made for so much more than that. Newer style flies like perdigons utilize UV glue to build pretty much bomb proof nymphs and using UV resins to add color, hot spots, etc makes tying life so much easier. A little dab of Sally Hansons on the whip finish is one thing, but using a quick cured UV glue or resin on certain patterns and techniques beats the pants off of any other glue that takes forever to dry. Building streamer heads, attaching eyes, using a flex glue, and so much more. Buy the UV stuff, get a decent UV light from just about anywhere and play around with it for a while and you won't be sorry.

 

[melvinp]

I’ve been using UV glues for a while now and haven’t had any real problems but I have a very good light but one thing I have noticed was trying to use UV glues in the bright sunlight not only it start to harden the glue when I tried to just give it a dab or not harden as good when used more heavily maybe I’m dreaming but I have better luck with the light in a darker area meaning not as much sunlight