Thursday, September 24, 2009

New Gadget for Mono Eyes

Bass in my opinion will eat a dragon or damsel fly better, dry or nymph if it has eyes. This is based on many hours of casting foam dragon flies to pond bass and watching there action. Began using store bought mono eyes for these patterns based on the success rates.

Mono eyes cost and aren't in ever flyshop around.

You can melt line and make eyes. Started that and did ok. Seemed to take a lot of time and always resulted in burnt finger flesh.

Idea
A fixture to hold mono ( feed trimmer string ) and shape it as it's heated.

Sketches and prototype coming soon.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Multi-Vise Base

Decided that the two odd sized vises were gonna be a major problem I bought two more simple vises. That equaled the height of each station out.

The idea is mostly for Buggers and such flies I usually use or give away a lot.

Did my first test of four. Laid out my materials and tool on the base of the 'carousel'. (Remember I went to school to be a Mfg Engineer.) Started each step four times in turn. Surprising it went smoothly and quickly. Henry Ford might have just had something with that assembly line gimmick

I've done a dozen with it in 3 sets. Not all at once. I can't sit that long.

I doubt it will be all that great for dries with hackle, new patterns, or overly complicated patterns. Still like my rotary.

See potential for flies that have glue, lacquer, or UV adhesive that need cure times between steps.


Been thinking about this for awhile. Did several elaborate drawing. All of which would have made buying one probably cheaper.

Today I remembered two things KIS (Keep It Simple) and William of Ockham- All things being equal the simplest solution is usually the right one.

As of right now all that I have invested is time and some odds and ends I already had on hand. Probably gonna buy some set screws that match and figure a locking pin for each position. Still almost nothing spent. Cheap is good.

Tomorrow I'll test it out.