Floss, Whats it used for in fly tying?

[kgpcr]

I searched high and low and cant find a fly with a floss body. I bought a ton of it thinking i could use it on my Sockeye fly bodies. What can you tell me about the use of floss? Any pics of flies with a floss body? As you can tell i am new at this!

[SilverFly]

Almost exclusively used to wrap bodies. A classic example is the red body section of the Royal Coachman, which is tied with floss. Another common pattern that uses it is the Spruce Fly (good fly BTW.) I see it used more in traditional patterns but is still a useful tying material.

[stillinscrubs]

Bodies on more traditional patterns.

http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn96/stillinscrubs3/IMG_0938.jpg

http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn96/stillinscrubs3/IMG_1038.jpg

And tags or butts on others both old and new.


http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn96/stillinscrubs3/IMG_0978.jpg

http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn96/stillinscrubs3/IMG_2553.jpg

To improve the luster or appearance of the floss, run silver tinsel under it. Most are very translucent and you will have the black or bronze of the hook transmit through the floss and decrease its optical qualities otherwise.

Scrubs

[Derrel]

Like the poster above said, floss is pretty much useful for bodies. One thing it works pretty well for is an under-body material, designed to give volume and shape to bodies you want to wrap with more-costly materials or things that do not taper or build volume really well.

For example, let's say you want to tie a wet fly or streamer or nymph pattern that has a big, high-volume body of peacock herl, but you want the body to be torpedo-like, kind of small at the butt,and bigger at the hook-eye end: take a six-inch length of floss and tie it on and make the tapered body,then wrap the herl from the butt forward. Tapered body,with volume. Voila! Floss is very easy to work with,and it makes tapered under-bodies very nicely. It will allow you to use peacock herl or yarn or dubbing over-wraps to make tapered bodies that look beautiful, very easily,even if you're a relatively new tier. Wool yarn doesn't taper as easily as floss does!

Floss also makes a beautiful under-body with tinsel ribbing over the top. Also, if you're running low on say,medium-diameter chenielle, you can bulk up the body with floss and use small- diameter chenieille. Floss also works very well as an under-body when you tie a hackle the entire length of the body in palmered type pattern--it builds a bit of hook diameter and gives a bit of "grip" for the hackle, and as you palmer the hackle from the hook bend toward the eye of the hook, you can drop a half hitch or two or three (!) around the hackle's stem to make sure the fly is very sturdy.

[kigercreek]

Then there's acetate floss. I haven't used it yet, but have been reading of it for years. Completely different material/possibilities.

[Thunnus]

Then there's acetate floss. I haven't used it yet, but have been reading of it for years. Completely different material/possibilities.

Put some acetone on it and the floss just disolves and will never come off or come unraveled.:twocents::twocents:

[Newbs]

Put some acetone on it and the floss just disolves and will never come off or come unraveled.:twocents::twocents:

Cool. I can't wait to try that.