All about foam

[flyfisherlady]

Can anyone tell me a little about foam. I need to make a balloon caddis and some foam ants ollie edwards style.
What sort of foam should I get for this and are there any household substitutes.

Oh as an aside, is it possible to dye just one or two feathers of something?

And another thing, what is a hen hackle?
If I need some do I need to buy a whole cape?

Cheers chaps.

[Scratch]

Originally Posted by flyfisherlady

Can anyone tell me a little about foam. I need to make a balloon caddis and some foam ants ollie edwards style.
What sort of foam should I get for this and are there any household substitutes.

Oh as an aside, is it possible to dye just one or two feathers of something?

And another thing, what is a hen hackle?
If I need some do I need to buy a whole cape?

Cheers chaps.

Foam.. have a butchers around the house Polly.. foam is pretty much foam.. as long as it's not too delicate and the cells are not too large and 'open'. There are those who get all precious ove the stuff, but if it does the job, it does the job. Bung us yer address and I'll send you a selection of under the counter stuff

Not really practical to dye just a couple of feathers... unless you're dyeing a batch of other stuff and you can pop them into the mix.

A hen hackle, strangely enough, comes from a hen... as opposed to a cock. Loose hackles tend to be on the pants side, even a cheap cape (2 or 3 squid) is emminently preferable to loose stuff.

[ickypimp]

Hobbycraft... they sell sheets of craft foam cheap enough i especially like the cream one for mohician mayflys .. i picked up a pack in the pound shop with about 10 colours for ... err ... well a pound..

[davie1984]

Any craft shop will sell you foam sheets in various colours for pennies. Its all pretty much the same to be honest! I just got some hen capes pretty cheap from the fly tying boutique. You should check them out.

Davie

[arkle]

To dye a couple of feathers use a permanent marker.

Hen capes are fairly cheap of you look around a bit.

[flyfisherlady]

Those sheets just looked a little thin to me. I'm thinking about ants and beetles. A La Oliver Edwards. Can I just double over to make the foam fatter?
Nice tip about the marker pens.

Sorry this is all about my mad cap plan to tie all 20 of the Oliver Edwards Patterns by the end of March.

Thanks so much.

Polly

[john]

doubling over (or side by side) is fine so long as you do not compress the foam, closes the cells and reduces floating ability.

[andy macbog]

Hiya,

Aye you can just double the foam though for larger flies like gurglers and the like I would glue it as well (with a flexible, transparent craft glue). For the wee flies you will be doing I do think that one (2mm or so) layer will be enough for you. You may have to resort to the tackle shop thopugu to find foam thin enough for the smaller sizes of the ballon caddis for example.

Have fun with it,

Andy

[Brit in a Bothy]

Just to answer your question re hen hackles....they tend to be 'softer' and more flexible barbs than cock hackles. The hen hackles give a better movement in the water which is why they tend to be used for spiders / wets / nymphs.

As a general rule, use hen hackles for wets and the stiffer cock hackles for dries.

Nigel

[flyfisherlady]

Cheers, I'll let you know if I fall flat on the foam front.
Found a brilliant article on hen hackles.
Hen Hackle Demystified - Global FlyFisher

seemingly I need a genetic hen saddle to do what I need to do.

Damn you Mr Edwards, this is getting expensive.