Advice on Hares mask dubbing

[nidd]

Hi,

I'm having difficulty understanding where/how to take the fur off a mask and a pair of ears to make a good 'buggy' dubbing. Not sure what or where 'guard hairs ' are. Have seen tyers use a small rake? Whats the best way to cut and blend? I like to prepare and store batches of dubbing ready for use and need some hares mask to tie with over the winter. Any advice / pics etc. most welcome.

Thanks

Nidd

[danielp]

I find the eastiest way is to grip a pinch of hair really firmly and pull away, then the fluffy bit poking out from between your fingers can be removed and you are left with mainly guard hairs (these are the long spiky ones as opposed to the soft fluffy curly ones). The ratio of guard hairs to softer hairs dictates how buggy your dubbing will be (some soft aids in getting nice tight dubbing noodles). Also different areas of the mask give different lengths and stiffness of guard hairs.

Dan

[cax]

hares mask is brilliant stuff, pull it off in tight pinches and mix up the lighter coloured soft underfur and darker more spikey guard hairs together to produce one of the best dubbings available.

[scubacrazy123]

I use a dubbing stone to remove the hair, depending on how hard you "rake" the fur dictates how much guard hair/ normal fur comes off. Another way is to use a rake, do a search on here for loads of ideas.
As for blending, I bought an electric coffee grinder off ebay for £10. Using this it is possible to blend different furs together, different colours or different types.
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Gary.

[articwolf]

holy ****!.......over the pond do u not have places that resells stuff that is given away..like stores or organizations..you should be able to get a 'coffee grinder' there for under a quid....hell mine cost that much...

..if you are going to blend stuff that is the way to go..a very well spent dollar!

[strikealight]

I use hare's fur a lot. The stuff off the ears is short and spikey and is great for small, slim spikey bodies. I just take off lots of small pinches until I accumulate enough. There are various shades to choose from on most hare's ears so you can blend stuff together to get the shade you want.

But for plumper, "buggier" bodies I take more fur from the base of the ears, and for really long guard hairs you can go for other areas of the mask such as the cheeks, although I find these are rather light in colour. The thing is that when you move off the ears, when you pull a tuft of fur out you get a mix of guard hairs and the finer, more downy underfur. This can be good to bulk out a body, but if you want a higher proportion of guard hairs, once you have pulled the tuft out with two finders of one hand, take up a dubbing needle with the other and stroke / tease / pick out the underfur from the tuft. Then put the pinch down and repeat until you have the amount you will need.

I find that long, stiff guard hairs can be hard to dub particularly if it is not mixed with the finer underfur, so I roll it all up into a little ball, tease it all out into lose fibres again, and repeat this process until the guard hairs are a bit more crumpled up. This makes them much easier to dub, in my experience. Of course, sometimes you will not want to do this because you want the guard hairs to stick out straight.

Personally, when I want a high proportion of long, stiff guard hairs (particularly darker ones)I mix some in from pinches taken from a patch of hare body fur.

Hope this helps - took me longer than I care to admit to work it out for myself!

[dwiltshire]

Nidd,

The further away from the ears you go, the more underfur you will have.

Experiment with the effect you want. The ears give litle of none of the under fur, leaving you with very spiky dudding.

Rakes are great for further down the mask. I personally would just pinch out the fur from the ears, as already suggested.

Further, I prefer to put the fibres in a split thread, rather than trying to noodle them around the thread or emplying wax. The split thread allows less buidl up and keeps the very spiky effect you are probably after.

Hope that helps,
Dave.