| Building the Fly (Experimental Psttern | This Epoxy Mayfly Pattern is Epoxy Glued on top of the hook shank, The build was made using twisted copper wire stretched between 2 vices, The body is simply 8/0 Black tying thread and also 8/0 White tying thread for the individual ribs. The eyes are tiny Sugar Balls. (Yes! Sugar) as used for cake decorations, coloured black with permanent ink pen and stuck on the copper wire then epoxy glue on the eye's. these remain strong and do not come off or disintegrate in the water.
While building the pattern on the copper wire the legs were tied on using 2 ' lb Monofilament Nylon (2 below the thorax and 1 forward of the thorax behind the eye's) using black thread in figure-of-eight style tying and each leg is about 3 inches long for ease of tying the knee joints which is easy by making a loop on the nylon and putting a needle in the loop and then you can draw the loop up close to the thorax to position where you want the knee joint to be then tighten up the knot. Only one knee joint is required for legs under the Thorax area but the Forward legs are longer and has two knee joints and the front legs are manipulated to face forward of the eye's.
TThe 3 strands of 2 1/2 lb Monofilament Nylon was used for the tail during building on the copper wire and the markings on the nylon was with Brown Permanent Ink Pen. When the Tail/Body/Legs and head were complete, the pattern was finally cut from the copper wire and mounted on the hook shank by using epoxy glue and seems to stay on ok during casting.
Now for completing the pattern the wing and thorax required to be built, a small thorax was made with epoxy glue with the pattern on the vice inverted so the glue set with a small hump.br>
The Wing was made with my technique of using a small Polythene Bag 3x4 inch, and using a Permanent Brown Ink pen (which see), Putting 2 round dots drawn inside the small polythene bag, Then mix up a small amount of Clear Epoxy Glue smear the epoxy glue inside the bag on and around the Brown Dots, then spread out the glue to remove any air bubbles, now the bag is placed between Pantyhose material or similar material, then placed in a workshop vice and compressed tight until the Epoxy glue hardens. This will leave the pattern of the Pantyhose Material impregnated onto the Polythene to look like the natural veins of the insect wings.
TThis then is cut out to shape while using the Brown Spot mark included in the wing. The wing then is glued on the thorax area using epoxy glue and finally building the thorax to the correct size. Then it is coloured using permanent ink pen. Off course the same pattern can be build on the hook itself without using the twisted copper wire technique, but the same can be build on the hook shank using the twisted copper wire around the hook shank and positioned so the insect retains the slight U shape.
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