On Jan 29, 4:50*pm, "Tom Littleton" wrote:
"Larry L" wrote in message

...I tried ( I think I read it right ) the blend and clump method on an

18 last night and ending up trimming back the fibers to a small enough
length. * It seems this trimming works better than with many
materials *and doesn't yield a product that looks un-natural. * *If
the fibers owe their float to hollowness, does cutting them reduce it?

it sounds like you did just fine. I have seen little loss in floating
properties. I think the reason is this: the hair, if you look at it closely,
has a lot of curl. A bunch of it produces curls that create a ton of air
pockets, going every which way. Clipping it might expose the tips to taking
on water, but the trapped air keeps those tips well out of the water contact
required to sink them.

As ( on the foot I've started on ) you work out from the skin under

the foot you have a dark gray area, then a lighter nearly white,
nicely transparent in places zone, and finally a crinkley section I'll
call stained looking in color. * * Does this entire fiber, three

distinct colors, have the same floating qualities?

not exactly. The crinkly stuff floats the best. However, when you do the
blending thing, getting some of the softer parts(avoid the underfur right
close to the skin) doesn't seem to have an adverse effect, and sort of makes
the whole clump a little easier to control and shape. Experiment, as you
seem to have struck a few nice possibilities, and you may well discover lots
of stuff I haven't. And, therein lies the fun of tying for yourself!

Oh, Tom, do YOU find the various colors useful?

who do you think led Reid to his suppliers? Personally, I tend to use
certain shades heavily, others far more sparsely. Without doing an exact
count, I suspect my basement stash consists of:
10 natural pairs
20 dark dun
20 medium dun/brown
5 pale dun
with a few each of sulfur yellow, tan, chartreuse, olive
and rusty brown. My signature fly, if I have one, uses the darker dun for a
wing, and thus, I am about to grab another 20 pairs for the coming season's
needs.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Tom

Love my chartreuse bunny foot. Dark dun is great for a caddis.
Frank Reid