Tips and tricks

[Daryle Holmstrom]

Any little shortcuts anyone use. I use a seven day pill box (four of them) to stow my hooks. Also I magnetize a jewelers screwdriver to pick up hooks one at a time. Coffee grinder dubbing blender, kids glue stick for wax for thread dub.

Daryle

[riseform]

I had a jeweler cut a sharp notch into the back of my Matarelli whip finisher so that I can simply turn the instrument and cut the thread after completing a fly without needing to grab scissors.

I saw Craig Mathews doing this on a video and called to ask about the tool. I was told Mr. Matarelli made it for him as a gift.

[flytire]

heres a whole bunch of tying tips

http://outdoorsbest.zeroforum.com/zerothread?id=404408

[Be Jofus G]

A can of compressed air, like you would use to clean electronic equipment, will clean a tying desk in a few seconds. It also workes great for clearing glue out of hook eyes if you like to tie a bunch of flies and cement all the heads at the same time.

Adjustable blue flame butane lighters or pencil torches work great for reshaping hooks and make short work of melted mono eyes.

Take a 1/4 inch dowel and cut it to the height of your vice. Insert one end into a hole drilled into the center of a 5'' X 5'' X 1'' block of wood. Cut thin slice in the other end of the dowel. Use it to hold a well tied photo of the pattern you are tying. Helps keep your proportions correct on new patterns.

A sheet of glass or mirror covering the top of your desk will make removing whatever you accidentally glued to your desk very easy. Just scrape it off with a razor blade. Mirror is the better because you can see the underside of what you are tying without having to rotate anything.

For those of you with little kids, baby food jars make awesome stackable hook containers. plastic baby wipe containers make good places for storing left over bits and pieces to use for dubbing later.

Sew 2 beer cozies to each side of a mariners baseball cap. Get two rubber fish tank air hoses with shutoff valves long enough to reach from the beer cozies to your mouth. It will give you the ability to use both hands at all times.