Thanks for the welcome. I promise to behave and try to be diplomatic; but on to the meat of my subject in my last post.
My latter-years revival into rod bending and fly tying has revealed that my once nimble fingers still had the muscle memory but I noticed the adverts for whip finishers and decided to take a look.
I bought several in turn, and whilst the last one - with a rotating handle suited me quite qwell, the bulbous loop at the rear end nearest the handle proved to be a wee bit inaccurate aat times - possibly because I was being a bit 'cack-handed' and even when I decided to crimp it in a little in the vise, it was still not ideal - FOR ME.
I'm a workshop fiddler by nature - you know - no wind-up toy car was safe and had to be dismantled to see how things worked.
So, I decided to cut the stainless loop and re-comfigure the remaining section closest to the handle, forming a hook which i fined down to a blunt point, then burnishing it up on a buffing wheel with 'T' cut.
Yes - it works fine. I do not have fine enough welding gear to fasten the stainless wire sections, gut it was amazing when I whipped the sections together with tying thread, then doped the windings with a couple of doses of superglue - then clear varnish.
It's amazingly strong.
So, now I finished the whip finish - pushed the tool forward under thread control in order to release the rear hook, the pulled the thread, allowing the front hook to recerse on to the place where I want the whip to finish, and disengage it.
GREAT ! but I was still looking for perfection, and yes, Marc, I just had to risk a family crisis and spend money on a Petijean whip finisher - all the way from Poland.
Older and gathering arthitis in thumb knuckles anbd some broken hand bones, I found that the slim handle on this well-made tool tended to disappear into my hands, so I added a staghorn handle, slipping and gluing a section of plastic tubing into the rear end of the drilled hole in order to create a bearing surface on the handle rear. I then added a short knob of staghorn to the extreme rear - glued in place - which acts as a controlling bead to hold the main part of the tool in place whilst I engage the thread.
Absolutely nothing else was interfered-with.
Now to the results of my trials :- This whip finisher is lovely to use, especially on the finer threads of the non twisted variety.
However, it's not so keen on firm winding of 'cable-laid' threads, (e.g. Cobweb #6 ) especially when beeswaxed, which require a bit more pulling about. They tend to haul the sprung hook towards the front hook, thus closing the gap long before it's required.
(Maybe I'm being a bit ham-fisted).
Anyway, I now have two excellent whip finishers, and if I am remiss in my opinion, then it's simply an honest one from just another amateur fly-tyer.
I believe that an adition to M.Petijean's armoury would be to simply produce a more strongly sprung model for the heavier, twisted threads, and those who like to produce a rather tightly wound whip.
