"Conan the Librarian" wrote in message
...
Larry L wrote:

It's not as hard as it looks. I do mine with an old "eggbeater"
hand-drill and simply twist each leg until it shortens enough so that
when it's transferred to the nail it is kept taut. Pick up the two legs
together and reverse the direction of the drill.

I hung mine from a hook in the ceiling with a weight on it and let it
self-equilibrate. I used a cordless drill and a watch to run the parts one
way then the whole shbang the other. There used to be a really good
dissertation on making them on the Bamboo rodmakers list serv. (Claude
Freener (sp) I think wrote it)


Maybe I'm crazy, but after the first couple of tries, I started to
enjoy myself. I'd put on some music, set the board on my workbench and
in about 30 minutes I'd have a leader.

They are fun to make- and they are fun to fish with, for a while. I seem to
remember that they wern't too great for nymphing, and really bad if it was
cold enought to ice up the guides. But boy are they supple and soft
landing. They do spray- so you have to false cast somewhere else if your on
flat enough water to matter. I tried soaking mine in shoe waterproofing
silicone and couldn't tell that it made any difference. They waterlog
pretty quickly, then they either have to be dried out or changed. I made
mine with 6/0 uni for my 6wt. I also used it on my 4 wt. I seem to
remember that I hade a couple of occasions where they broke a few inches
above the tippet (I used a loop to loop connection I think) - snagged a fly
on a backcast sort of thing- could never figure out why the leader broke and
not the tippet.

i was thinking of trying it with a kevlar tying thread someday :-)

So it looks like I'm the only ROFFian who admits to using a furled
leader (much less making them). I got a similar reaction when I first
asked about them a while back.


Chuck Vance (who figured they'd at least have some adherents
among the bamboo and silk "crowd")