Does any body use UV resin when tying flies and if so whats the best resin and where can I get some thanks
I've only used the Loon products, but I like them and use them fairly regularly. Most recent was on the saltwater flies using the new Popovitch fleye foils. Great also for chironomid bodies or buzzer patterns. Once you own some you will find all sorts of uses for it at the bench or around the house.
As for where to buy.... I would just pick a place, they all are expensive. I did buy the more powerful flashlight at sierra trading post, but it cannot compare with a sunny day like today.
save your money and dont buy the solarez uv desk lamp bulb. not worth the money. buy a good uv flashlight or use the sun. the sun is the best for curing any brand of uv resins . this is one of the better lights for curing uv http://www.ebay.com/itm/LED-WF-501B...Flashlights&hash=item27c7d7c9ce#ht_500wt_1396
I've been using Clear Cure Goo for a while and its pretty sweet. If you buy the regular, non-tack free stuff, you may want to overcoat with a hard coating like Hard as Hull its a little tacky. Besides that, its pretty great stuff that won't ever yellow like epoxy and comes in several different viscosity levels.
I'm using the Loon stuff so it might be a little different, but you can get rid of the "tackiness" by running some isopropyl alcohol over the coating after you cure it. Not a lot, just get a rag a little damp and go to it.
Norm - 375nm wavelength? Is that the right wavelength ? I know Bug Bond and CCG are at 395. Loon is at 365. I have the same light at 395nm. It works fine for me. The only problem with that light is the batteries are expensive unless you get them on eBay in bulk and you burn through them quickly. Brad....
brad yes on the 375nm wavelength. and it cures bug bond, ccg, diamond hard and solarez. i just use duracell batteries and have no problems. i dont keep the light on the fly for any length of time. just enough to set the resin. i just did the poppers in the following fotos using diamond hard uv resin cured with the ultrafire light and then a final cure under the sun. hard as a rock and no tackiness whatsoever. no need for alcohol wipes or sallys nail polish. i think tyers using the uv cured goos are just too anxious to touch the light cured product (yes i'm one of them).
I've been using Bug bond. It works. Haven't been particularly blown, but it works. Seems like CGG is a lot more popular, but that could very well have something to do with it being sold in more than two shops in the entire country. Posts I've read where people test them seem to suggest they both work out about the same as far a quality. I believe that CGG has more product options.
I use a Uv cure resin and a ultraviolet laser pen light, it cures the resin in four seconds and it comes out like glass. i now use it for all my nymphs buzzers and finishing salmon heads. I used Bug Bond and Deer creek resin and found this stuff is half the price
I use Loon UV Resins (as duly noted you can use denatured alcohol and wipe the treated area with a q-tip or finger to get rid of the film. Clear Cure Goo Tack Free is also a good product. TIP: When painting my buzzers, I thin my resin out with denatured alcohol. This will make the process much easier by allowing you to paint the fly more evenly. You won't have the resin tracking the brush as you pull it away. Just play with the ratios to get the desired consistency.
for reasons completely unrelated to fly tying I have been learning some of the chemistry of these UV resins. The cure is inhibited by oxygen, so that is why the surface remains tacky. (I agree, hard to resist touching it and finding out if its as hard as it is clear.) Below the surface oxygen diffusion is slow enough that the cure can proceed. I imagine if the UV light flux is high enough, i.e. bright enough, as in sunlight exposure, the rate of the cure reactions increases enough to overcome the rate of oxygen inhibition. If you could displace the oxygen while curing with a flashlight, by blowing some other gas on it, maybe that would allow it to surface cure. Any ideas what might be handy and safe to do this? Jay
I've only used the Loon resin and Loon light so I can't compare it to any other system yet. Seems to be ok. There is another system out there which I would like to try - Tuffleye (sp?) I will when I use up all the Loon resin. Jack
I think the 375nm description is wrong. Most vendors that sell this light advertise it as 395nm. Since a 7 and 9 can be mistaken for one another, I think it is closer to 395, Some vendors sell it as 395-410nm. Here is the link that was given for the 375nm flashlight. Go to the link and you will see that it is identical to the other links that I provide below that show that both the flashlight and the bulb used are in the 395-410nm range. http://www.ebay.com/itm/LED-WF-501B...Flashlights&hash=item27c7d7c9ce#ht_548wt_1381 375nm is visible to humans and the lower limit of our ability to see into the violet is 390nm, at the upper rang of the UV A spectrum, the so called near UV range. If the light were really 375nm, we could not tell if it was on or off. There would need to be 2 leds, one in the invisible led range and an indicator led to let us know the flashlight was on. The Ultrafire 501B flashlight uses a CREE UV bulb. You can buy spare bulbs and they are 390-400nm in the advertisements below: http://www.ebay.com/itm/China-Made-...rnsTorches&hash=item5d2e3208b7#ht_2169wt_1094 http://www.ebay.com/itm/China-Made-...lashlights&hash=item4aba730e19#ht_3455wt_1038 http://www.ebay.com/itm/3W-CREE-UV-...aultDomain_0&hash=item3efe270abe#ht_724wt_650 See the identical flashlights advertised in the 390-410uv range. They use the Cree bulb shown above. http://www.ebay.com/itm/UltraFire-W...lashlights&hash=item4ab1a57f1d#ht_7001wt_1383 http://www.ebay.com/itm/UltraFire-W...lashlights&hash=item1e6bcf4287#ht_3430wt_1172 http://www.ebay.com/itm/UltraFire-W...lashlights&hash=item4ab1cbc1d4#ht_5841wt_1496 http://www.ebay.com/itm/UltraFire-W...ultDomain_0&hash=item3cc1bf24bc#ht_4407wt_883 http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ultrafire-W...Flashlights&hash=item4d03f4182c#ht_3330wt_791 Please remove the following if it is not allowed. As an aside, I sell a no tack resin that cures at 395nm with the standard light in less that 10 seconds. PM me for info.
I suggest you place a dab of the resin on a white price of paper and then cure it with the laser pen. The stronger the light and the thicker the resin, the more heat build up and the hotter the cure. This can cause a brown tint to the resin. I have found that the strength of the light must be matched to the thickness of the resin to cure it clear and yet fast enough to be tack free. If there is no brown tint then your laser pen is matched to the thickness and cure of the resin you are using. With a standard LED flashlight, one can vary the "hold off distance" to make the light on the fly stronger or weaker. One cannot do this with a laser because it is a coherent beam of light that does not spread. The second advantage of a flashlight when used with the proper resin is that on does not have to "work" the pencil beam laser over the fly since the light floods the fly body. If the flashlight is too weak for the type of resin used, then the brighter laser is needed for a proper cure. During my hunt to find a resin I bough a laser, several flashlights, and a commercial wall plug in UV light. Some resins required the commercial UV unit to cure with no tack. This includes the tacky resins that are now sold for fly tying. So you can buy a commercial UV unit to cure them tack free, but they take up to 10 - 15 minutes to cure. They were a hassle but they cured rock hard with no tack. They would be OK for commercial tying. These resins would not cure even with the laser. A cheaper solution to use up these tacky resins is to make a sun cure box. Then you use sunlight to finish the cure and it will cure hard, shiny, and tack free. My solution is a simple sunlight curing box with electrical clips to mount the flies into the box as described below. These are the clips that are used. You can make a sunlight UV curing box by lining the inside of a small cardboard box with aluminum foil, shiny side out. The foil coating reflects the UV rays in sunlight so all sides of the fly are exposed to UV without any need to rotate the fly. Rather than using the artificial UV light, sunlight is free and once the fly is mounted, the sunlight will cure it completely without any need for you to monitor or manipulate the fly. A simple fly mounting method is to poke holes in the box so that electrical clips can poke into the box from the sides. Then mount the flies in the electrical clips to cure. A better mounting method is to make the same box but also to drill vertical holes into a small wooden block. The holes should fit the base of the clips so the clips stand vertically to suspend the flies in the curing box. Cover the wooden block with foil so it will reflect the UV rays. The cardboard box must be deep and large enough so that the flies are suspended within the box and not above it. After you coat the fly, use the clip to grab the bend of the hook, release the fly from the vise and place in the UV dryer for 5 minutes and then finish in the sunlight curing box for about 30 minutes and then test to see that the cure is complete. These are the electrical clips I bought. http://www.ebay.com/itm/80-PCS-Hand...ultDomain_0&hash=item3f15a395a9#ht_2573wt_883 Rather than fuss with a slow cure or tacky resin, I finally found a resin that cures fast without tack with the standard multi UV led flashlights in the 390nm range.
Call me crazy but what is a buzzer?? And would one of you guys post a picture of a nymph you have put the UV resin on?? thanks
These are buzzers http://www.google.com/search?tbm=is...q=buzzer fly pattern&sa=N&biw=569&bih=239#p=0
