Sandbagged!

Sandbagged!
Photograph by Steve Barnett

Wednesday, 13 November 2013

How to Whip Finish Your Flies

How to never lose your whip finish tools?  Keep them attached to your hands!  That way you can always find them.

 1) Hold the thread downwards in tension with your left hand (opposite if you are a southpaw)
 2) Place your first two fingers of your other hand onto the tensioned thread, backs of the fingers to you
 3) Lift the thread in the left hand, still in tension, up level to the fly, turn the right hand so the underside of the fingers face you
 4) Keep the thread in tension with the left hand holding the thread in line with the hook shank, this makes a kind of inverted figure four "4"
 5) Use the fingers of the right hand to turn the thread over the hook shank behind the eye and over the thread alongside the hook shank
 6) Repeat for as many turns as you require
 7) Trap the thread against the hook shank with the left first finger
 8) Remove your right fingers from the loop
 9) Take a needle and hold the loop in tension with the needle
10) Draw the thread tight slipping out the needle as the thread pulls tight, cut off the spare thread and Voila! 



...the whip finish

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