FLYMPH FORUM

Several years ago when my father passed away, I was going thru his tool shed and found an old box of Grafting Wax. Dad used to use it for grafting new branches to apple trees. Dad had the greenest thumb, of anyone I've ever met.

Anyway, I've held onto the wax for many years, wondering if it could be used for fly tying. This morning I decided to melt down the wax (as a way of removing some of the crust from the outside of the block and remove bits of wax paper that had fused to the surface). I saved an old spam tin just for this purpose.







I used a pan partially filled with water, to make a hot water bath to slowly melt the wax.




A pair of disposable wooden chopsticks worked nicely for stirring the melted wax, and removing the debris (wax paper).


Once melted, I then pored some of the wax into those little plastic butter thingies you get at restaurants. They seemed like the perfect size for little cube of wax for tying purpose.




I made up several small pieces of wax (flat pieces & cubes). The rest I pored into a plastic sandwich back an flattened out into a large disk, which was placed into the freezer. Hopefully once it is ice cold, I can break it into smaller pieces for future use.



Anyway, just wanted to show my latest crazy experiment in this ever-fascinating hobby.

(Thanks Dad, for the new tying wax)

If it's good for tying, you have a life time supply there, my friend.

Yes, indeed!

That reminds me of when I was just getting into fly tying. I was tempted to buy a full case of dubbing wax (the ones that come in tubes). Fortunately I decided to see how long the first tube lasted, before investing in a full case.

Needless to say, there is still plenty of wax in that first tube after twenty years of tying... LOL!!!

I think we were separated at birth. My grandfather was an apple farmer in NH. I remember waxing grafts in the orchards with him when I was just a little kid. When we cleaned out his barn after he died, I found two gallons of old, unlabeled wax. Whether it was something he bought, or a concoction of his own devising, I never knew. It never occurred to me that I might have used it for tying.

Love it Ray!!

But i just had the mental image of Walt Disney doing a sorcerer's apprentice cartoon movie of flytyers and what some of us go through in the mystic art of feather bending.

Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble let a fly be made on the double!

P.S. This should go in the tutorials for those tyers who want to play with making tying wax.

Bill - Next time I know what music to play when I’m playing around.

Howdy All;

The Spam cans I can relate to, I'm one of those that enjoy it.
It's realizing he saves the butter pat thingies that got me.

hank

The spam can was saved for this specific purpose. The butter containers were left over from a takeout meal earlier in the week (still full of butter until I had toast). I looked at them and though “perfect”.

Necessity is the mother of invention…
Waste not, want not…

SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAMITY SPAM!

Ray, Howdy;

So, if freshly used then you didn't need to pre-grease them
before filling them with wax. Clever Lad. chucklin'

hank