I use a hot wax method to assist in the removal of the fine flue from the Peacock eye feathers.
Use Parrafin Wax pellets (from a hobby craft shop) or melt 6 tea lights in an old pan as you will not be able to use it for food again (or buy a cheap pan for a few pounds.
The safest method is to use a double boiler which is the wax pan located inside a larger pan of boiling water, this limits the maximum temperature that the wax can be exposed to, providing that you dont allow the water bath to boil dry.
You can use the wax pan directly over a heat source BUT NEVER LEAVE THE PAN UNATTENDED, THEY ARE MUCH MORE RISKY THAN A CHIP PAN. If in a rush, I do them this way but as soon as the wax has melted I remove the pan from the heat.
Select the peacock eye feathers you need to strip and with a bit of central stem left on to hold move them about in the wax bath to ensure that each eye fibre has been exposed to the liquid wax. I then scrape off the excess wax on the edge of the pan then place them on a non absorbent surface to harden.
Once the wax has hardened fully and is cold, use a dubbing needle to seperate one quill fibre from the eye gently working from the dottom of the eye ttowards the top. While you are holding the wax coated fibre between my thumb on one hand and index finger pull the fibre through to scrape off all of the wax, all of the fine flue will come off at the same time leaving a nice clean stripped quill fibre.
I wax dip all of the eyes I need then bag them up and as it only takes a few seconds to strip each fibre, I do them when tying each fly.
Worth a try.
I should try the bleach method as it sounds like it may be quicker, my big concern was toning down the contrast between the dark and light sections on the fibre.
Kevin.
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