Cape Grades

[barclay34]

What Do The Grades Mean, is it 1=Best 2=average so on


Thanks

[Albannach cuileag]

Barclay34,

if you go to your local purveyor of flytying paraphernalia you will find that grade = price = quality in most cases.
The higher the grading, i.e. 1, gold, premium etc, the higher the quality and always, the higher the price.

Buying capes and saddles can be an expensive business and you are better off buying half saddles for top quality feathers. Grade 2, Silver, Tyers Grade are more than adequate for most of our uses and dropping down the scale to Grade 3, Bronze and the likes give reasonable quality hackles.

As always, the more you pay, the better you get. Suppliers such as Metz, Whitings, Keough et al, supply quality to suit all pockets and if your pockets are as shallow as mine, go for the best that you can afford.

Good luck with the tying!

TLs

[barclay34]

Thanks Albannach cuileag,

That Helps lots ,
Thanks again

[DavidP]

http://flyfisherman.com/ftb/sshackle/

Check out the above article which has some description of the different grades. I think usually at least in whiting the difference between gold and bronze is in the number of flies that that cape will tie. A bronze cape is not necessarily very inferior although of the ones I've looked at the gold certainly looks better but an individual feather may not be too different its just there are more of them on a gold.

[ballantinefly]

There is a bit more to cape grading than just 1 being better than 3.Different firms using different grading criteria but in general cape grading is as follows
1+ grade/A grade/Platinum Grade Cape-Even feather length, barb length even for length of feather stalk, very little or no flue,clean bright and shiny,no broken hackle tips
1 grade/ B Grade/Gold Grade- As above but maybe 1 or 2 broken tips
2 grade /C Grade/Silver Grade-A few broken hackle tips, most feathers of even length,slight tapering of barb down length of stalk,minimum/ a little flue
3 grade/ D grade/bronze grade/tyers grade- anything that does not make the above standards so there can be a wide difference amongst them.

I grade about 2000+ capes per year and have had many discussions with other producers and distributors both in Europe and the USA and the above seems to be the general concencus. There are some producers who vary their standards but most of them seem to be within the common parameters

[barclay34]

Originally Posted by ballantinefly

There is a bit more to cape grading than just 1 being better than 3.Different firms using different grading criteria but in general cape grading is as follows
1+ grade/A grade/Platinum Grade Cape-Even feather length, barb length even for length of feather stalk, very little or no flue,clean bright and shiny,no broken hackle tips
1 grade/ B Grade/Gold Grade- As above but maybe 1 or 2 broken tips
2 grade /C Grade/Silver Grade-A few broken hackle tips, most feathers of even length,slight tapering of barb down length of stalk,minimum/ a little flue
3 grade/ D grade/bronze grade/tyers grade- anything that does not make the above standards so there can be a wide difference amongst them.

I grade about 2000+ capes per year and have had many discussions with other producers and distributors both in Europe and the USA and the above seems to be the general concencus. There are some producers who vary their standards but most of them seem to be within the common parameters

This makes it clearer