Burnin Caddis Tent Wings

First off - I guess DT and I are thinkin alike here lately. Just after I posted this - I saw that he did one too. Sorry about that DT. His method that he shows is just as good and is much faster to tie. Thanks buddy for your posting. This is just another way of doin it.

Learned this trick a few years ago on making durable caddis tent wings using a wing burner. As far as burners go - I have a set that I bought and I have also made a few of my own. I looked around the 'net trying to find a site that would have templates for anyone wanting to make their own and what do ya know....the only link I found brought me right back here. Apparently a few years back Skip16503 posted a link to a pdf. file that has just that. Kind of belated but thanks Skip. Here's the link:

http://forums.fishusa.com/m_10875/mpage_1/tm.htm#10875

Also.. here's a link on how to make them:

http://flyanglersonline.com/flytying/tyingtips/part195.php

And here's the tute:


Materials:



1. Take a tea bag, cut off the top, dump the tea out, and unfold the bag till it's flat. Then take the feather of choice (here I used pheasant rump but any single feather from a hen saddle will work) and strip off the bottom, leaving the bare stem.



2. Using a flexible tying cement like Dave's Fleximent or Flex-Seal, coat the underside of the feather. I use a toothpick to do this but to each his own. Coat it heavily. Then put the feather on the paper, underside down and with the toothpick, stroke the feather making sure the paper is wet on the underside. This ensures that the flex-seal is coated the whole way through. Let dry ......  a few minutes is all it takes. Then trim off the excess paper around the feather.



Top side:



Bottom Side:



Trimmed:



3. After drying a bit - fold the feather in half along it's stem. Put it in the wing burner with the stem being along the straight edge of the burner. Trim off the excess wing at the end of the burner, take a bic lighter and burn off the excess. Take the wing out of the burner.











4. Put a hook in the vise and hold the wing up to the shank and trim for correct length.





5. Start the thread and work back to the hook bend. Dub the body forward. Here I used a dubbing loop with ice dub for the body. It's a bit buggy looking but the wing will support the fly when in the water.







6. Take the wing and seperate the halves buy taking a needle and inserting it into an opening and working it through the wing starting at the "stem" end. (While burning it, it most likely will stick together a bit so it needs to be seperated.) Mount the wing on top of the hook shank -  check for center.







7. On top of the hook shank - tie in two pheasant tail barbs for the antenna - try and not to wrap to the eye - instead leave a small area of bare shank as this will be where you will whip finish off...in front of the antenna. Trim off the excess.





8. Tie in the hackle, wrap forward and tie off. Whip finish in front of the antenna and cement.





There ya have it... and another on a size 16 with fine dubbing for the body. (Should have used a different color for the wing though on the 18. Oh Well.

Actually it does look like a leaf hopper and in my haste to get this done and get to a appointment I had, I actually burnt the wing in the upside down position - didn't realize it till now. Should've burnt and mounted it the other way. Sorry - it's an age thing ya know.

Sweet, thanks for sharing this. I love seeing how you all tie.

Good for you, Man, Keep doin ur thing