Preparing for an upcoming trip by adding to the terrestrial box. Black foam beetles, with a peacock body, are go-to flies, but they are tough to see on the water. Some patterns add an orange strike indicator. The guys at Blue Ribbon Flies came up with a great idea, incorporate the indicator into the foam itself.
A trip to the craft store is in order. A sheet of orange and black foam, plus some foam glue. Make an orange foam sandwich, then cut into thin strips. Tie your favorite foam beetle.
A tiger foam beetle. Much easier to see. Great idea, great fly.
5 responses so far ↓
1 cutthroat stalker // Oct 11, 2008 at 9:11 am
John, I came across your blog from the comment you left at Robert’s site. I frequently use beetles (I’m a wuss tier, so beetles are easy for me). I usually tie them with a nice white post and grizzly hackle so i can see them. My question: How does the adhesive hold up to the water, the casting and the teeth?
PS Lucky dog with the awesome wife–loved the tying table!
PPS Added you to my blogroll.
2 WhiskeyCreek // Oct 11, 2008 at 10:02 am
Hi Cutthroat Stalker,
The glue worked well, once I selected the spot on the sheets. I started with a quarter sheet, and there were some voids in the glue coverage. The second attempt was better, I used more glue and paid attention to coverage on both sides before bonding.
I haven’t had troubles delaminating during fishing, but I need more field testing
Also, I made some hopper patterns, laminating furry foam to yellow craft foam. That worked well also.
Thanks for the link. I returned the favor.
3 jmeyerc // Dec 29, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Hi John,
I am a lady tyer and I like the use of foam in my tying. I am trying to get as many foam pattern’s that I can find, so I can have a folder of floatable’s at hand to tie for friends to use.
A question here please, would super glue be waterproof enough for the glueing of the foam together?
4 WhiskeyCreek // Dec 29, 2008 at 10:57 pm
Hi jmeyerc,
I used a spray on glue formulated for foam for the lamination. It took a couple of trials to not have voids or gaps in the glue. I was using sheets of 4×5 inches or so.
If you use super glue, I would work with thinner sheets, maybe 1 inch by 4 inches. That would still give enough for tons of flies, and be easier to get a constant flow of glue across the surface.
Please let us know how it turns out
Thanks,
John
5 jmeyerc // Jan 25, 2009 at 10:47 pm
Hi again WhiskeyCreek,
I have managed to get the cell foam sticking quite well with the super glue – but I had to find a brand that worked and performed well when cut together. and it seems to work well.
We have different brands to what you guys have and although very expensive – I have found the right one now. It looks good and I now have a good product to sell and to give away.
So thank you.
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