FLYMPH FORUM

A few of you would have seen I was lucky enough to stumble upon a good supply of wool yarn recently. I managed to get three 500 gram bulk spools of a nice orange colour, so decided to experiment a little with good old Partridge & Orange to let you see how the yarn can be put to use as a wrapped shank body material.
This particular yarn is 90% wool 10% synthetic, is very strong, can be drawn through cold wax with little threat of breaking (more on that later) and is roughly the same gauge- or slightly thicker than #3/0 tying threads used for bigger Salmon type flies or as a body material for smaller flies.

I have also been lucky enough recently to receive some truely wonderful waxes from Bill Bailey and Mr Eagle Elk, thank you very much guys. For this wee experiment I only tied the three flies, one all natural and unwaxed (to the left in the photo) one waxed with Baileys Tying wax (center of photo) and the third waxed with Baileys Cobblers wax (right in photo).
The waxed versions were given a fairly heavy waxing, both to fully coat the wool and to see if it would pull apart on multiple draws through cold wax as most woolen small gauge yarns will. Through the tying wax I had no problems at all- the yarn will cut into the wax before the wax causes too much friction hold for the yarn to seperate. The cobblers was cold and straight out of the pack, it took several passes but the yarn did break, but much more of a clean snap than a pull apart of the spinnings of the yarn that usually happens with wool.

Using wool as prespun yarn for fly bodies gives the ability to form a quick easy body, has straggley fibres not unlike sparse dubbing, is easy to control (wind or unwind), can be spun "open" to flatten the thread and loosen the body to try and gain more buggy looking bodies or less bulky bodies. A very versitile and (mostly in this case) natural product.

Trout candy.

Those are some great colors you got there, nice texture on the bodies.
Thanks for sharing Jeff.

Thank you for sharing this Jeff. Very nice stuff and the flies are awesome too.

Wow, what a great illustration of the affect of different waxes. That orange thread is going to work out great!

Jeff, this is fantastic. I love these comparative posts and the bodies on these look great.

Nice, Jeff. That looks like some excellent yarn, the way it will take wax.

Thanks for the kind words evryone.
I had not waxed wool before, mainly because I have had few yarns that would stand being pulled through or over wax without breaking, nor having too many that are this fine in gauge.
I liked the fact the wax did not "control" too many of the errant fibres. After drawing over the wax I did run the lengths of yarn through my finger and thumb under tension a few times to help "push" the wax into and through the yarn to give a more even coating.

With 1.5kg of this stuff I have a lifetime or three supply. Some of you may get to tie a few similar flies up come the end of May, but for those that cannot wait we might be able to sort something out.

A very informative project, Jeff. As others have pointed out, it's really interesting to see the ways in which different waxes affect your orange yarn. Thank you for sharing.

If everyone is genuinely keen on seeing different waxes on this yarn, then I could do a series of "test" samples on a card or something, showing how each wax effects the original yarn.
I do not have a huge selection of waxes, but thanks to Mr Bailey I do have three of his. Plus other waxes or mixtures I already had or have made-up. Don't know if single strands on a card will give a true indication, but I could do the card and then tie some similar Partridge and Orange flies to show how they look i use.

Let me know if there is some interest and I shall see what I can do.

Absolutely!