Epoxy flies
Hey there,
Being a self taught, somewhat mediocre at best fly tier, I have a question for the many expert fly tiers on the board. I have recently been tying up some epoxy flies that have a fairly heavy coat of Angler's Choice Soft Body (the stuff I use), and am having problems with sagging. Can anyone recommend a way to get an even coating, short of buying one of those epoxy drier things. Or possibly a faster drying epoxy. Thanks.

Hi, Dave..... there are about as many ways to deal with epoxy flies as there are days in the month..maybe more !!! Lots of rodsters use the 5-minute formula....it is usually water-clear when it sets, and resists UV rays for a while. At present I use the Industrial Formulators 5-minute stuff, because it is a Canadian product, so the profits at least stay home. Because of the short cure window, one must work at a goodly pace, and not coat too many at once. A dryer is not a bad idea..... mine is a BBQ motor for 2 bucks at a garage sale...with a disk of dense styrofoam 5 inches in diameter as the rotator. You can get lots of flies on this size disk. If your resin takes longer than 5 to cure, you can experiment with the pot life, and apply near the end of the pot life so it will set up moments after you apply it. Problem with that is: you may wait too long, and have a lumpy show on your hands. Another trick is heat.... the resin will polymerize quicker (shorter pot life) if the molecules are vibrating faster from the heat.
Your heat source can be a 100 watt regular bulb in close proximity to the flies. etc. Or a 60. You'll need to be there, as the heat will for sure cause the resin to sag. Sag can be a good thing in the case of "zonker" type candy flies....acts like a keel.

I hate using epoxy. The stuff you are using works fine. Apply a few thin coats rather than one thick one. If necessary take the hook out of the vise and turn it upside down and place back in the vice a couple of times - in my experience thin coats dry quickly and don't sag. The main reason to apply epoxy like coatings is to protect the fly from damage once a fish is hooked. Some patterns use it to bind a variety of fibres etc into an acceptable body. On minnow patterns the application itself doesn't increase the effectiveness of the fly

Dave, for my epoxy minnows I use LePage's #12 5 minute Epoxy. When I tie my minnows, I use mylar tubing for the body instead of just wrapping the hook with silver tinsel.Tie it like a tied down minnow with eyes, Then you just give a fairly light coat of epoxy, enough that it saturates into the mylar, this solves the problem of floating.The mylar tubing body is very streamline and it is shaped like the real thing, so the problem of the epoxy sagging and drying strange is 90% solved. You still have to turn it somewhat to ensure it dries properly and not all on one side, etc. Make sure that you don't have more epoxy in the back area, this will make the fly swim upside down, you need a little more in the belly so good fly will swim the right side up. I use natural mallard flank for the back and that's it. For sagging you can also wait til the epoxy isn't so runny, then apply it to the fly. Dave`

You all remember "The Proff." now at Tunkwa lake, his solution was to sneak his wifes "Hard As Nails" He gave me a bottle when we met up last year. Great stuff particularly for Chironomids,it may need a number of coats depending on the dressing.

Thanks for the tips, I've been putting on thinner coats with a needle, that's working much better, they're starting to look half decent now.

Hey, Dave.....this anglers choice product... is it a 2-part deal, or a one-part deal? never heard of it up this way....we fish minnow imos in june/july and this stuff might be a great alternative to epoxy. Thanks.

It's a one part formula, dries in a couple hours.

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