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.
