Fly Tying Foam Cylinders & Sheets - Introduction and Advice On Usage For Fly Tying
Foam has been used for many years in fly tying. Fly tying foams come in many forms, as flat sheets which can be trimmed to size and used for bodies for example as bodies of grasshoppers or floating terrestrials and lures, it can be shaped as poppers used for many lures or as cylinders which can be used for bodies for exampleas a detached mayfly body or used for its buoyancy in a Foam Arsed Blob . Foam comes as open or closed cell in closed cell, in closed cell foam bubbes of air are trapped unline open cell foam which has broken adjoining cells. Open cell foam means water can flow into the foam giving it limited floating capability whereas in closed cell foam the bubbles as all closed trapping gas which is gives buoyancy. Normally for the fly tyer is that we usually use closed cell foams.
Top flies using Fly Tying Foams - we have a vast range see foam flies which include:
- Sandys Blank Buster Assassins
- Black Beetle Foam
- Sugar Lump Buzzer Foam Orange
- Daddy/Crane Foam
- Foam Arsed Blobs
- Crippled Mayfly Foam
- Fritz Foam Fry Black
- Buoyant Bloodworm
- Floating Foam Fry
- Grasshopper Foam
- Heather Fly Foam
| Foam is a very useful fly tying material. In Sheets we can make strips which can be used to create detached bodies in flies like mayflies and daddy long legs or craneflies where a long detached body is required. An example s shown on the video to right. This uses foam strips which are ribbed using 2 strips of foam tied and extended beyound the hook shank using a needle which becomes the extended body and this is then tied to the shank of the hook. Foam sheets have many other uses however, beetles and chironomid patterns or the traditional sugar lump buzzer all use small strips of foam to create buoyancy. Check the step by step tying of the Sandys Assassin which is a deadly floating chironomid pattern |
Foam can come premoulded as poppers made by many excellent materials companies or as foam cylinders. Foam cylinders can be very small, Semperfli produce cylinders as small as 2.8mm through to large 6mm and 9mm cylinders. The 9mm foam cylinders are used as the detached bodies for foam arsed blobs. The other form which we use foam is in small balls which get used as suspenders for buzzers and chironomids caught in the surface film.
Top Uses For Fly Tying Foams you:
- small strips of 2mm foam for thorax covers to make flies buoyant
- longer extended sheets as detach edbodies, wind in pairs and segment with fly tying thread
- small 2.8mm cylinders are detatched bodies for mayflies and craneflies
- use large 6mm and 9mm Cylinders as for bouyancy as bodies or as foam arses on flies like foam arsed blobs
- shape larger cylinders with a craft knife or heated blade to shape into wasp or ant bodies
- Shape sheets as bodies for example with the Chernobyl Ant
- Use 2.8mm and 6mm cylinders as eyes on Boobies and Booby Nymphs
