Flexible Stretchable Fabric Cement

It's been quiet around here for quite a few days. So OK. I'll break the ice.

I just got a bottle of Aleene's new "Flexible Stretchable" water based fabric cement. No photos yet but preliminary fiddling leads me to think this is gonna be a paradigm shift of major proportions. It will now be possible to make soft flexible critter sculptures big and small with various combinations of anything: fur feathers synthetic twinkle and nylon mesh, just to name a few. Fabric cement has been under-appreciated for years. I use it a lot. But until recently fabric cement gradually dried and hardened to something vaguely resembling transparent tire rubber.

But now it's suddenly soft and flexible too. And rubber band s-t-r-e-t-c-h-a-b-l-e. At this point anything goes. You can now make anything you want and it no longer has to be wrapped around a hook. Tube flies will no longer need a rigid tube. Soft flexible itty-bitties can be made on a thin needle (acupuncture needles are great) and then slid off the needle when the goo becomes tack free. And it's water based. No VOCs

This is going to be fun.

I can't wait to see what you come up with. I just accepted a job in Vancouver WA. So not much tying and fishing for me this fall - I start in January. But I cannot wait to be back on the trout side of the country.
A.

Vancouver! Cool. Right on the river?

I'm tying today. Fishing tomorrow. It's going to take a while to come up with some patterns I'm willing to share. After the big build up I don't want to pop the balloon with ugly flies. But I like what I see.

This (flexible fabric cement.............STRETCHABLE fabric cement...........that cures clear) is fabulous stuff.

Step One


Wrap a worm hook with lead or soft brass wire. Soak it with CA glue. Flatten with smooth faced needle nose.

Step Two



Use flexible stretchable water based fabric cement to glue a soft schlappen streamer feather to both sides of the lead wire. Run a bead of glue along the stem of one feather back to 3/4 the length of the feather, so the two feathers stick together just behind the hook. Don't run the glue all the way out to the feather tips. Use only enough to tack the two feathers together right behind the hook, so they can't get wrapped around the bend of the hook.

Lay it down on plastic bag or a empty plastic hook pouch and start another.

Now wet the side of the minnow with Flexi-glue, on top of convenient piece of plastic, perhaps an empty hook pouch. Lay down a strip of Tinsely something or other (Lateral Scale in this case) so the glue goobers up around the edges of the tinsel strip. The flexi-glue starts out milky white but cures to clear. Crystal clear. The stuff I've worked with in the past (Tear Mender) cures to almost clear. Aleene's Flexy glue cures dead clear. Cool stuff.

Flip the minnow over and repeat on the other side.

Now start another minnow while this glue dries. The glue will take half a day to cure completely. Perhaps longer. But you only need to wait about 20 minutes before moving on to the next step (adding eyes....or what ever)

Press on some stick on eyes. Slobber glue around the eyes, so the edges of the stick on eyes are embedded in glue. Wai wurri (as Jeff might say). This stuff cures clear and soft and malleable. Rubber band stretchable. And yet it holds and holds well.

Ooops! I forgot thread!



Last step (not shown yet) will be to wrap the head in glue and hang it up to cure. This glue is curiously rubber like even when wet. You don't have to put it on a curing wheel, as you would with (rock hard) epoxy. You can hang wet, not-yet-cured flies on a string and walk away.

After this one I want to cut a V-shape out of the base of a schlappen feather and soak it liberally with glue. Let that cure on a flat piece of plastic. Trim the ends of the V-shape and then glue it (somehow someway--this will be a SMOP--small matter of programming) at right angles to then end of a streamer strip, to make a light weight paddle tail minnow. I've got garlic hanging in the windows and I'm holding up a silver cross. I'll be OK. :=))