Silk Fly Line for just Five Dollars

Five Dollar Flyfishing Silk line:

Text and Pictures  Pasi Sormunen,  unless otherwise mentioned. Imatra March  2014

Copyright:  This guide may be freely copied and used for personal use as well as all altruistic activities and training courses. Any commercial use without prior agreement is hereby strictly prohibited. 

  

At the dawn of flyfishing ,the casting lines have been made of a variety of materials. But the first tapered lines  are known to have been made from horsehair, with a furling technique. Naturally there are limits for the length of a hair of stallion and the early linemakers started to add several different materials in to lines, such as hemp, cotton and finally silk, to get lines longer and more durable.

The early fishing lines were made with similar methods than man had already for  thousands of years furled ropes. The era of Industrial Revolution at the 17th and 18th centuries  introduced the world several kinds of braiding techniques which were soon adapted also to manufacturing fishing lines. Braided fishing lines displaced the furled ones almost totally by the end of the 18th century.

Every now and then there still appears some makers for the furled lines, even with commercial purposes.  At some discussion forums furled lines have been claimed to be stretchy and not casting well, nor running properly on snake guides.

I found that furled and warmish treated lines just won’t stretch at all. It is true that a Furled silk line is not that smooth and flat than braided ones but - have a thought for a golf ball. It flies quite nicely!

Are those furled silk lines worth of anything in today’s world?    To make, or not to make, that is the question ;O)

For these reasons I decided to have a try:

-          Furled and tapered leaders are excellent. And furthermore easy to make and cheap. Silk is a perfect material for furled leaders.

-          Tenkara.  Just perfect method to make a tenkara line.

-          Shooting head. A while ago I read a discussion, in which furled silk lines were bashed and specifically pointed out that furled lines stretch like a rubber band and only braided silk lines are smooth and flat enough to make any good and run properly through the snake rings.

Tenkara line leaded my thoughts that if I made a 30 foot shooting head, with the same method than furling three strand leaders? The running line could be either silk or even  modern ”slick shooter”. And also shooting any fishing line further than 50-60 foot would cover most of the needs in actual fishing situations with singlehand rods.

-          Furling three strands produces much more round, smooth and flat surface than two-strand furling. After impregnating and varnishing with boiled linseed oil, does not stretch hardly  at all.

 

Above two-strand and below furled three-strand leaders, both treated 3 times with linseed varnish

-          Furled line can be done by almost anyone at almost any home, with normal handtools. The only problem is to find a “ropewalk” long enough.”.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ropewalk

Making a line

Of course some tools need to be made and some time spent on planning.  The Best way to start is actually practise making some furled leaders, so you can  familiarize yourself into basic techniques needed. Instructions for furling leaders can be found on internet easily. Start reading e.g. the following links:

 http://opff.org/furled-leader/furled_leader.html

http://personal.inet.fi/private/tapani. ... ERUKE.HTML

You need two Jigs, one to the front taper and another to the rear taper.

You can use the same Jigs for making leaders, and they can be used to making a line for almost any length and line weight.  I started in my living room, where I could make a ropewalk long enough for a 32 foot shooting head. And luckily I can have over 60 foot long ropewalk at our flyfishing clubs clubhouse.  With a 60 foot silk running line and a 32 foot shooting head attached with 8 foot leader. I think it is quite a long cast with single hand trout rod?

32- Foot shooting head is actually quite a nice standard measure. With a letter scale you can check the AFFTA class for the completed line immediatelly.

AFFTA  classes vs. line weights

 

Any readymade recepies for this kind of fishing lines I could not find, so some experimental study has been mandatory.

I made two jigs, which each produce different length of taper.  My “front taper jig” produces app. 2.5 meter taper and the “rear taper” is  shorter, app. 1.8 meter.  The basic Idea is to make a “switch line”  Longer front taper prduces a presentation type line and when you put the steeper end into front, the line has capability to cast  a bit bigger flies against the wind.

A 9 foot leader with three strands can easily be furled, one strand at a time with a hand drill, but  a longer casting line needs some kind of tools to be made so you can get an equal amount of twist into each strand.

Above ”a furling machine” having pulleys made of plywood. One wheel attached to drill and others rotated with strap. This kind of tool will do ok, but maybe a cogwheel version will some day come out.

Tapering is done by winding loops of the silk around the poles attached to jig and connecting the loops to each other like shown on a picture.  It is a good idea to study the technique by making some shorter leaders first.

32 – foot 5# line requires app. 200 meters of silk thread with the following receipt: 3-4-5-4-3- 3+3+3. Numbers define the required loops of thread in each part of the strand.

 

And then, just start furling: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd24f6FiMFo

The basic idea for furling is the very same than making ropes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHW3-NL6EQc

And now is your first shooting head out of silk almost ready. Fishawk 100, a rod winding thread has proved to be a quite nice thread for this purpose. http://www.roserushbrooke.com/for-fishermen/  provides also 1000 yard spools, so one line would not cost even the 5 $.

Making the endloops for the line, use instructions for the furled leaders.

When you have a hand drill and some needles and pins with the jigs ready, a 32 – foot shooting head is easily furled in half an hour to 45 minutes time. And the total cost spent is for 200 meters of silk thread. That’s why I call it  “a Five Dollar Silk Line”

Of course there comes a couple of cents more to have spent  for the finishing, but still can be made within the 5 $ cost.

Treatment of a silk line

Before you can go fishing with your new line, some treatmend is needed to fishing line last for the next 100 years in good condition and of course also to have a proper functionality to cast.

Traditionally silk lines have been treated with natural varnishes like boiled linseed oil, which might still be the most recommendable treatment.

For the First treatment the line needs to be impregnated, in other words saturated with vacuum. I have made a couple of tests and seems that the needed impregnation is reached when heating the linseed varnish, eg. In a glass jar in a pot, where you boil water. When the warnish reaches 80 degrees (Celsius) temperature, put the line in the jar, and seal the jar. Get it out of water and let it cool. It produces a vacuum effect strong enough. 

 

Furthermore I suspefct thet even the heating of varnish would be enough, even without any vacuum effect.

I have used ”Old time varnish” which is just made from boiled linseed oil, added some ingredients to speed up curing picture: http://www.tikkurila.fi/kotimaalarit/tu ... 4346.shtml

Link to my simple vacuum method explained:
https://salmonliberationfront.blogspot.com/2014/05/silk-line-impregnation-or-saturation.html

After the initial impregnation yoy need trhree additional treatments.  The second one also with heated varnish and the last one with cold varnish. The curing time of above mentioned varnish is 5-7 days, so the next treatings should be done before the previous coating is dry. I  have let the line dry for 2 -3 days before new coating. After the 4^th treating at let it dry for two weeks in the room temperature hanged as straight as you can.  After each treatment wipe the excess out.

After two weeks of drying, check that the surface is not sticky anymore and you can start polishing the line, with cloth, actually a piece of fleece seems to be nice.

According to http://www.overmywaders.com/extracts/Si ... Schott.pdf this might even be enough, without extra waxes or other treatments.

Some use beewax, paraffin, carnauba or just rub candle into line to get it smoother.

After two weeks of curing I have waxed lies with ”Sateenkaari Antque wax” for 3 times   http://www.perinnetaito.fi/tuotteet.html?id=5/28   This wax has part of beewax, part of carnauba and also some paraffin added.  After a couple of days  after waxing marinate the line by rubbing traditional Red Tin Mucilin into surface and put a signboard on your door “Gone Fishin”

Of course there are a lot of other treatment methods and recepies, but with the above described, seems to end up quite nice.

And if you, my dear reader, got some crazy ideas of this article… at your own risk ;O)  Have fun.

But maybe there is something more peculiar also, one can waste time for?

A splitcane rod with wooden handle, brass reel (Michael Hackneys reel building kit) and a silk line, all of my own make - Just waiting for the summer and a couple of nice trout.

Finshed surface looks like this after 5 layers of linseed oil varnish

Also Light salmon shooting head and Skagit lines under planning and constructions  ;O)

This receipt produces a 7#  “switch” shooting line, 40 ft long, weighing app. 12 grams

Perfect match for 7-8# doublehander "Skallelv" rod

Added 26.1.2015 some remarks:

I have 2 jigs:  one to  create shorter tapering and the other to create longer. The idea is to make a "switch" flyline.  With the shorter head forwards you get more power (mass) against the wind, and with the longer tapring forward, you get better presentation. 

you can freely adjust the length of the line, because the tapering jigs are separate.

Here are the measures of the jigs I have used: 

I have made also 4# lines and some 8-9# Salmon shooting heads.  Basically the amount of silk turns in the middle section pretty much defines the class.

5 turns (3 x 5) in the middle produces 5 # line, 7 turns ends up to be 7#.  The same applies to 4# and 8 to 9#.  Some colours then "suck" more linseed oil varnish and get a little bit hevier than others, but not much effect on the line class

These kind of flylines cast actually very well. The only negative point is that furled lines get sometimes twisted, caused by the pumping action and the outer surface shape.  Twisting is not very bad, but when fishing several hours, one has sometimes let the line float freely in the current to get the twist off.

But anyway is is fun to "do it yourself" and learn about anatomy of flylines.

Sources, references  and further reading: 

FlyFishing &FlyTying, January 2011. Jack Wilsons article ”Furl your Own”

http://www.overmywaders.com/extracts/SilkLinesbyWolframSchott.pdf

http://opff.org/furled-leader/furled_leader.html

http://personal.inet.fi/private/tapani. ... ERUKE.HTML

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ropewalk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHW3-NL6EQc    Making a rope, Kädentaitajia pohjoisesta Keski-Suomesta - Heikki Pihlainen, Antti Pihlainen. Perinteisten kädentaitojen työnäytöksiä Saarijärvellä 3.-4.7. ja 28.-29.8.2009

http://www.roserushbrooke.com/for-fishermen/  1000 yard silk spools