Friday, January 28, 2011

Luke's Stacker

So I've started a blog, not exactly sure yet where this is going to head, but I would like to at least share my thoughts on some issues, share a few pictures, share my ideas on how to make or do things as inexpensively as possible while having fun and functionality, and also promote my hobbies. I am not usually a person of very many words or very much intellect, but I thought it would be a nice challenge to try something new by putting a few things in writing for others to hopefully enjoy. So please bear with me as I try to figure out the mysteries of blogging.


To begin I have been fly fishing a little this past year, mostly for salmon and steel head, and so I have also gotten into tying flies. When tying certain flies you use deer hair which sometimes needs to be straightened out into a neat little pile of hair strands with the tips of the hair somewhat uniform in length. You could probably do this by arranging the hairs individually, but that would take a long time, be frustrating, and just about impossible. The other way to do this is by using a tool known as a hair stacker, these can be found at your local fly shop for around five or six dollars and up to much more than that. However if you are like me, and live at least half of an hours drive away from your local fly shop, and you know already that their hair stacker is more expensive than you want to pay, you can head to the local hardware store and get one for around three bucks. The hair stacker that I found at my local hardware, which is only two miles away, is made of two copper fittings. The first of these is a 3/4" to1/2" coupler which is somewhat shaped like a funnel, one end wide, one end narrow. The second piece is a 1/2" end cap, this fits loose over the narrow end of the coupler making a sort of boot on it.


With this setup you might need to do some filing on the inside to remove the threads and any other abrasive edges that might catch the hair making it stack less uniform. This is the stacker I use and have had compliments on the idea and how well it works.

1 comment: