The skins shown are road kill, from various times of year. This is one of the main advantages of road kill, one may obtain skins at different times of year.
The simplest, quickest, method of obtaining what many of the old time dressers considered to be perfect dubbing for many flies, is to cut the tips off the guard hair. Cutcliffe advised shaving the guard hair tips off with a dry razor, and discarding the rest!
The guard hair is the part of the hair which waterproofs and otherwise protects the animal. But just cutting this off is wasteful, and also severely limits the blend shades and types one may obtain. Pure guard hair is however required for a number of patterns. It will not soak up any water at all, and floats like a cork. It is also springy and spiky.
Many patterns call for darker hair.Most especially the "Gold Ribbed Hare´s ear". The dubbing usually commercially supplied for this, and called "hare´s ear dubbing" is shaved and blended body hair which is quite unsuitable for that pattern. It is too light in colour because all the underfur is in the mix, it soaks up water, and it is often far too long in the staple. The staple is the average length of the longest hairs in the mix.
Indeed, as a rule, there is no "hare´s ear" in the commercial dubbing at all, the mask with ears is always sold separately, because that is mainly what people buy if they don´t buy a packet or box of the other stuff, which is usually mixed with plastic of unknown antecedents, which for all I know might be ground up old carpets!
Buying "ready mixed" "hare´s ear dubbing" is often a waste of money, as there is no way of knowing what is in it, or what to use it for. If you can´t get a piece of pelt, then buy Antron in the colour you require At least you know that will work. It may not be as effective, you can´t dress excellent dry fly hackles with it, and you can not alter its texture, but apart from that it is probably all right!
This is a bunch of hare body fur from about the middle of the back of the animal from a winter pelt. This is from an old jack hare. ( a jack is a male, female is a jill, a young hare is a leveret. Hares are usually solitary, or in pairs, but a group of hares, often found at mating time, is known as a “drove” of hares).
The bunch was selected by grasping a bunch with the fingers, like this, and cutting it off with scissors, as close to the pelt as possible;
To use this sensibly for various things, it must be separated into it´s component parts. Here is that bunch reduced to its components by cutting the tips off, cutting the middle part off, ( which is very dark, almost black here) and leaving the guard hair roots with the underfur which is soft and mainly light coloured.
One may also separate the guard hairs by separating the underfur and the guard hair from the bunch. This is done by simply pulling the underfur from the bunch with the fingers. This results in a bunch of long guard hairs like this, ( this guard hair is going to be used as a hackle on a dry fly), and the underfur on the right. Some “immature “ guard hair is also removed here.
It should be noted that there is a lot more underfur than guard hair!
One might also simply cut this guard hair into smaller pieces and use it as dubbing. This will give a darker dubbing with a greyish tint, because the guard hair itself has these three shades of hair along it´s length. This dubbing will be spiky, and it will shed water easily.
The underfur may be used, but unless very tightly dubbed, ( and also treated with a floatant) it will soak up water like a sponge.Many old time dressers merely used the "flax" which is the light yellow/brown/red/black guard hair tips, and discarded the rest.I often use the whole length of the guard hair for hackling dry flies, and the "flax" for dubbing the bodies. One may of course use it for hair hackles on wet flies as well.
One may also mix the flax and the "middle cut" ( the dark hair in the picture in this case), from the guard hair, in whatever proportions required to get the shade one is aiming for. This is then more or less identical to the hair which one obtains by scraping the ears, which have less or no underfur, just the tips ( very short on the ears) and the "middle cut", which is why the dubbing from the ears is spikier. This is also considerably easier than scraping about for little return on mummified ears!
Other blends are also possible, such as the flax with the underfur. This gives an easily dubbed mixture which will go on tight, but still have some nice spiky guard hairs. This will then of course be a much lighter shade. One may also simply use the underfur which takes dye very well (or pantone marker),is very soft, and can be cut into small pieces for "touch" dubbing. But this is quite useless for dry flies. Even with floatant it will sink fairly quickly.
The actual colours and shades involved vary according to where on the animal the fur is selected. This may vary from light grey through yellow to red to chestnut to dark brown or black guard hair tips, and the rest coloured accordingly. The underfur also varies considerably, but on the back for instance is a more or less uniform light grey or fawn colour. The whole thing also varies with the season when the animal was culled, it´s sex, and it´s state of maturity. Old jack hares give the finest dubbing, and the greatest variety.
This piece of pelt is partly used and shows the structure and colour of a piece of back hair.
It is often very convenient to divide a pelt up into pieces like this. Handling and selection are then a lot easier, but note where you got the piece from. You can just write this on the back of the piece with permanent marker.
In order to select dubbing for a specific function, floating, sinking, spiky, smooth, or a blend of these, one has to select and mix the various furs properly, or it wont work. Hardly anybody even knows how to do it, or why anymore, they just buy a plastic box or a polythene packet with a label on it which says "hare´s ear dubbing". For some flies , including wet flies, very specific types of dubbing may be required for correct imitation and operation.
I hope nobody seriously imagines that the suppliers scrape the ears and then discard the rest?
This medium tan blend has been made by taking three good pinches of the greyish fur from the rear back area of the skin, then taking a good pinch (the amounts are not critical, just make sure that your pinches are about the same size), of the reddish brown fawn coloured hair from the side of the belly,and placing it in a coffeee grinder. Blend this until well mixed. You may also use a “blender” and mix the fur wet if desired. For various other mixing techniques, see Dubbing.
The hair from this animal has almost uncanny attracting properties for fish, when used correctly, and the range of colours on a single skin is more than enough for a very wide spectrum of flies. I have a large collection of hare skins, and the range between individual animals, obtained in various places, and at various times of the year, is also very large. If you also dye your own materials you can have a vast range of this material at your disposal for pennies.
Do try to get whole skins though, the patches which are offered for sale are usually rather small, and taken from one specific part of the animal´s skin. This limits the colour variations possible, and is usually too expensive anyway. All my skins were obtained either from road kills, or from local hunters, and cost just a bit of salt and borax and some work.
I skin the animals, including head and ears, which I do separately, and nail the skin fur side down to a board, it is then carefilly scraped clean of any fat etc. The skin is then liberally salted with a 1:1 mixture of salt and borax and left in a cool dry place to dry.
When completely dry, shake off the excess salt and borax. I then wash the skins carefully in a bath full of soap and water. Dont leave the skins in the water too long, or all the hair will fall out! ( This is known as “slip”). The skins are then carefully pressed out between the hands, and rinsed in clear running water to remove all traces of soap. They are then stretched slightly and placed skin side down on a few sheets of old newspaper to dry. When completely dry ( you may have to change the newspaper once or twice), the skins are beaten lightly on the skin side against the leg (wear old jeans!) and shaken to fluff up the fur again. If you wish, you may use a hair dryer to speed this operation up, but it is not necessary.
At this point the skin has a texture similar to parchment. That was it! Place the completely dry skins in a suitable container with a few crystals of napthalene or similar to deter bugs.
There are several ways of blending fur. The most efficient and convenient means for an amateur dresser to blend small quantities of dry fur is by using an electric coffee grinder. These things are cheap enough to buy. If your wife does not like "hairy" coffee, do not use the one from the kitchen! Buy your own, and keep it with your fly-dressing gear.
The technique is quite simple, pinches or small bundles of fur are added to the machine, and blended using short bursts (switch on , count to five, stop and check the blend, continue as necessary ), until the required mix is obtained. This process also improves the dubbing qualities of the hair somewhat, especially some coarser furs, as the fibres are softened a little by the machine. Don't let the machine run too long, as this will damage the fibres, and the machine will tend to clog. If you add synthetics to your blends, be careful. as if the machine runs too long, they will melt and ruin the dubbing! Mix small amounts! If you put too much material in the machine, you will merely damage it. Also, comparatively small amounts of dubbing go a long way!
Keep notes on how you achieve your dubbing mixtures. A small sheet of paper with the amount used, and the colours is enough, I usually note whereabouts on the animal I got the fur as well. Place this slip of paper in the packet or container, or stick it to the outside. All the old time dressers did this, and usually they say where they got the fur from in their patterns.This also makes it a lot easier to repeat successful experiments. Remember that this is a dry blending method, and that the colours will look darker when the fur is wet. If you want to see thw wet colour, then use a “blender”, and blend the fur wet. Just add pinches of fur to the blender conatiner which should be about a third full of water. DON`T DO THIS WITH A COFFEE GRINDER!!!! It will short circuit.
Trapping air in dubbing is not a consideration. Anything that traps air, will also trap water. We usually wish to avoid that. For dry flies, we want a high percentage of guard hair in the dubbing, ( because we want the fly to float) but this is difficult to dub using some methods, so we have to "soften" it.
Take a very tiny pinch of appropriately coloured underfur, It does not really matter where this is from, of course the colour should suit the blend! But the underfur on the mask is dark blue grey. The underfur on the back is very very light grey, almost white.
Underfur from other paces is also different colours. It also does not really matter what you use to "soften" the dubbing here. rabbit, or even soft wool will do. Take some of the guard hair, and mix in the pinch of softer fur. You want about 10% soft hair and 90% guard hair. You also need the right "staple" The guard hair should be no less than 3mm and no more than 4mm for the most part.The soft fur you use should be longer, about 4 to 5 mm. This is then easily dubbable. The softer fur "binds" the guard hair. It does affect the floating properties somewhat though. One may use other methods to dub guard, or “middle cut”, hair, such as a split thread or dubbing loop technique.
You can find some softish guard hair right at the very base of the ears which you can use as well. this is a buff colour. There is also some soft guard hair of this colour inside the ear close to the black tips of the ears.
Incidentally a "bunny is not just a bunny" ! Hares have different hair to rabbits. Some wild rabbit fur will work for some things, but I can´t tell you which. You have to try it. Neither wild nor domestic rabbit fur will usually work very well for dry fly hackles for instance. There are several hundred breeds of rabbit, and they all have different hair, but a lot of it is simply unsuitable for many purposes. The matter is often further confused as Americans often refer to hares as rabbits. These are entirely different animals.
Everything depends on the properties of the material concerned. Loosely dubbed waterproof dubbing floats better than tightly dubbed waterproof dubbing. This is a factor of the surface area and the air retention among other things. But non waterproof loose soft dubbing will sink quickly.
Dubbing tightly, prevents water soaking into otherwise non-waterproof dubbing, because there is no space for the water to get into. Dubbing loosely will make it soak up water faster. If you drop a wash cloth in the bathtub it will soak up water immediately. If you wring it out tightly, and then hold it underwater,it will not soak up much water at all as there is no space for the water to soak into.
Applying floatant of various types also affects the properties of materials. The best floatant is dry and hydrophobic. Some natural materials like snowshoe and other animal furs exhibit mild hydrophobic properties anyway. This is how the animals shed water, They shake themselves, and the water flies off the fur or hair. Sheeps wool and some other things are also hydrophobic in their natural states, as they are full of various oils and fats. This waterproofs the animal. Water birds operate on the same principle, but have feathers and down. The feathers are waterproof because the bird preens them with oil from its preen gland. If you degrease a bird, it sinks and drowns.
Underfur is mainly insulation. It is designed to trap pockets of air forming an insulating shield. It is not normally waterproof, and if too much water gets past the guard hair, the animal will become waterlogged and die of hypothermia.
One other point here, which is often forgotten. many old time dressers used fur from various water animals, claiming these were superior. Which is indeed also the case with a few things. But the main reason for this is, is that
NONE OF THESE PELTS WERE TANNED!!!!
Much the same applies to various water bird feathers. Once hot dyed, or otherwise treated, they lose most of their properties. Guard hairs from any skin will float better than any underfur. Guard hairs from certain animals, or from certain parts on the skin of certain animals, float better than anything else at all. ( Hare back guard hair floats like a cork, hare belly fur sinks like a stone!) The guard hair from tanned pelts will also float better than any underfur, but not usually as well as the guard hair from untanned pelts. The hair from tanned pelts is "Softened" by the tanning process, so it is not as good for dry fly hackles as it loses a lot of its resilience, ( "springiness"). The same applies to dry fly dubbing which is to be used "loosely" ( not tightly packed ).
This does not matter much for body dubbing which is to be tightly packed, or for many wet flies. Untanned fur and hair makes better flies, also wet flies. The "shine" of the hair is different, and closely resembles chitinous carapace, chitin legs etc. Hair consists mainly of Keratin, and ALL hairs ( and feathers ) are composed of dead material. Treating this material in various ways can affect its properties quite extensively. Using hair conditioner on hair or fur ( often recommended) is for this reason not a good idea, as it softens the material. Unless of course you actually want it softer. Tanning and other treatments "Dull" the hair, making it softer and also more likely to soak up water. The hard "shine" of the surface is removed.
Furriers use various tricks to replace this shine, but these tricks do not repair the damage to the hair, they merely disguise it. A fur glazer-and-polisher operates a special machine that combs and polishes furs, and manually applies glazing solution to restore lustre. This is done manually using a spray gun or similar. At one time this was all done by hand. Yak butter was commonly used for polishing furs, and there are lots of other things, beeswax in spirit etc etc. This is the reason why you can not simply wash an expensive fur coat. It will end up looking terrible, because the polish is removed. Cleaning a fur coat is a job for a specialist. The polish also makes the fur more resistant to water and dirt once again, as it was on the live animal.
The only treatment I use on my pelts is a thorough wash in hand warm soapy water, ( using pure soap). Rinse thoroughly, and allow to dry. Hot dyeing pelts also makes them less suitable for a number of things. On many wet flies, it is often advantageous to treat the dubbing with watershed or similar, as this give the fly a different appearance. Of course, you may need to weight such flies, as they otherwise will not penetrate the film well ( "Poor entry" ).
There are a number of studies extant on the Young´s Modulus of fur and feathers. This makes very interesting reading, ( if one is so inclined! ) The term now most commonly used for Young´s Modulus is "Elastic Modulus". The same hype phrase used to sell fishing rods!
The point is, that any treatment of hair or fur, including the removal of natural oils, affects its properties considerably. Just washing a pelt once has virtually no effect, but radical treatments like tanning or dyeing have very considerable effects, often rendering the material useless, or at least very considerably less suited to certain applications.
Bleaching renders many things completely useless as well. It severely affects the surface properties of the hair. Bleached fur or feather will soak up water immediately. The application of the right floatant, ( which of course is also soaked up), will replace some properties, and make such materials at least temporarily waterproof.
Many untreated materials require no floatant. At one time cock hackles were prized because they floated without any treatment at all. The same applies to guard hair from untanned pelts. If you wish to increase the floating properties of UNTANNED pelts or untreated feathers, then you need to use a chemical which drys, and is hydrophobic, such as watershed. Paste floatants ( like Gink etc) will often achieve the reverse effect. Also, none of these things are "floatants", they are all waterproofing agents.
The PROPERTIES of many things make them more or less suitable for certain things. I know lots of people who have boxes and bags of all sorts of dubbing in every conceivable colour and texture, and some that are barely conceivable! With flash, with plastic, with gold dust, and who knows what else. But practically none of them know what properties the stuff might possess. The main reason I make my own dubbing, from materials I obtain myself, is because I then know what it is, and what it will do. Pre -mixed dubbing in a box is absolutely useless to me, because I don´t know its properties. It might sink like a lead brick! I also don´t want to mess about testing every single material thoroughly before I can use it.
Nowadays, using modern "floatants", ( read "waterproofing agents") one can ignore a lot of things, just as people nowadays largely ignore rod actions and simply choose what "feels best". But that does not invalidate the original reasons for using certain things. It is not just the colour and texture of dubbing which are important, the intrinsic properties are important. Also, it is better if you know how and why things work.
Synthetic dubbing does not float a fly because it is positively buoyant. It floats because it does not get wet. ( This does not apply to all synthetics, some soak water like sponges, and sink like bricks). I would prefer to have an untreated Snowshoe hare pelt, instead of the feet, as I am quite certain the back guard hair would have the properties I am looking for, and I could easily colour it with a marker pen to suit my taste. Unfortunately , I can not obtain such a pelt here. I have tried for a long time.
One can dye hare fur more or less any colour, and the end result depends on how dark that colour is. I dye this fur a lot. The results depend on which part of the fur you dye, and how you dye it. Pure white belly fur dyes up extremely well, giving bright vibrant colours. Various other sections of fur give varying results depending on the colours and shades already extant, and the intensity of the dye bath used. One can dye such fur jet black if one wishes, but I don´t really see much point in doing so. One loses the subtle shade changes of the natural fur, which is partly why it is so attractive. The only way to get a hot aniline dye, ( and many others as well!) to take properly, is to have the bath at the right temperature. It does not matter how long you leave the material in the bath. Either it takes, or it does not take, and leaving it longer will make no difference at all.
TL
MC
