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Editorial content tagged with Do it yourself

Title Body Published Time ago
Tom’s Leather Fly Reel Cases

Dutch Tom Biesot made some beautiful leather cases for his homemade fly reels

1 year ago
Tom’s new Hummingbirds

Dutch Tom Biesot has shown his skills in making tying tools before, and now takes his Hummingbird bobbin holder to new levels.

3 years ago
DIY wooden landing net

Wooden landing nets might not seem like the easiest or least expensive DIY-project, but this article shows how to easily make one almost for free

4 years ago
Hardy style reel cases

Leather maker Remus Stanescu describes the dirty work behind making a couple of Hardy style reel cases.

5 years ago
IKEA Fly Tying Board

How to make a 10 dollar tying station based on a cheap IKEA cutting board.

5 years ago
How I Make a Leather Flybox

In this article Romanian leather artist Remus Stanescu takes you through the process of making one of his beautiful leather fly boxes.

7 years ago
Tom’s complete vise project

The continuation of Tom Biesot's vise project - of course with many explanatory pictures.

8 years ago
A leather folder for your flash

This small DIY article shows you how to make a leather folder or jumbo-wallet for convenient flash storage.

8 years ago
DIY material clips

I have used my fingers and metal bulldog clips plus varying degrees of dexterity for hair hackle loops. I decided to try to make my own material clips for the purpose.

8 years ago
Laser cut tool holders

I'm working on an article on tool holders and have been fooling around with a drawing program and a laser cutter

8 years ago
DIY bodkin cleaner

This is the greatest little tool you can imagine for cleaning varnish off your bodkin or dubbing needle, and you can make one almost for free.

8 years ago
Home made rod tubes

Making your own durable, fabric covered rod tubes that can hold several rods each is pretty easy

8 years ago
Inexpensive materials

Fly tying material is often big, inexpensive pieces cut up and sold small at high prices. It's always worth looking around for alternative sources. You can find some really useful materials for almost no money.

9 years ago
Tom's Vise

The design and making of a homemade fly tying vise.

10 years ago
DIY IKEA line tray

A few inexpensive items from IKEA and a little work, and you have a fine line tray.

10 years ago
Sid’s Fin Hack

Modifying float tube fins with better straps normally used on snowboard bindings. This article shows how you can easily modify the fins yourself.

11 years ago
Preserving Feathers

A simple method of preserving bird skins from birds like ducks. If you hunt or know hunters, there's a rich supply of materials, almost for free

11 years ago
Fly Photography

One day last year I was thinking about how best to illuminate flies for photos when I thought of using a LED flashlight as a sort of spotlight. They were very cheap - $3 at the checkout of any office supply store - but pretty wimpy. I started checking to see what other options were available and was surprised to find that LED lights are already very popular among photographers.

11 years ago
Fishing trip sandwich

Back in 2004 fellow GFF partner Bob Petti and I had a small sandwich battle on our blog. It was about the World's Greatest Sandwich and Europe's Greatest Sandwich. The sandwiches were Bob's and my own bids on sandwiches to devour on your "working-from-home" days.

13 years ago
DIY brushes and combs

These are some of the least expensive and most useful fly tying tools you can make yourself. A Velcro stick, a brush and a comb made from strips of Velcro, pieces of wood, hair combs and even ice lolly sticks!

14 years ago
The Ugliest Flies

Martin has just received the ugliest flies he has ever seen in his life. And no, don't worry they weren't from a potential GFF contributor or a well meaning friend, but commercially tied. They just confirmed what he has always said: home tied flies are best.

18 years ago
Tool turning

Dutch Henk Verhaar finds that producing his own tools is just as satisfying as tying flies or building rods. Follow his small course in woodturning here and learn to turn hair stackers, bodkins and other beautiful tools in exotic woods

19 years ago
Dogma framing

Framed flies can be pieces of art - both the flies and the framing. But creating your own framed flies is not that difficult. Follow these instructions and frame your first fly with few tools and few demands on routine and skill. You can develop it into art later.

19 years ago
100 Weird Ways to Catch Fish

About a year go GFF visitor and author John Waldman (of "Stripers, An Angler's Anthology" fame) posted a message on our discussion board with the subject "World's Strangest & Most Clever Fishing Techniques".

In this message he called for assistance on strange ways of catching fish. The message spawned quite a good number of answers of which I'm sure you will find a few in the book that came from Waldman's inquiry - amongst other sources of course.

20 years ago
QwikCalc

Want to use LeaderCalc but don't have access to MS-Excel? No problem! We at GFF recognize that many of you have been missing out on the extensive capabilities of LeaderCalc in helping you design your own tapered mono leaders.

23 years ago
Fly fishing leaders and tippets

Leaders fall in several categories. These all serve the same purpose: transmitting the energy fra the fly line to the fly in a gentle, yet firm way. The different types each have their advantages and disadvantages, and selecting one is often a question of compromises.

23 years ago
Rod building

Tom Kirkman's book "Rod Building Guide" is a cover-to-cover brain dump of the author's experience building all manner of fishing rods. He doesn't tell the reader as much how to do things, as he does why, and almost as importantly, why not.

23 years ago
Make your own dubbing wax

When I recently reached the bottom of my last tube of Overton's Wonder Wax, I decided to try making my own instead of buying one of the newer commercial dubbing waxes. Like a lot of other tyers I had made my own dubbing wax years ago, but I didn't do it with a critical frame of mind.

24 years ago
Sullys Rod Drying Motor

I don't expect much from a rod drying motor. It should turn smoothly and hold a rod section securely while it turns. Bumps and wobbles and starts and stops are most unwelcome. Sections that come loose and stop turning are definite no-nos. An on-off switch is nice

25 years ago
Picric acid

Dyeing with picric acid yields colors between a gorgeous olive and an electric yellow.

28 years ago
Making a wading staff

Here's the recipe for making a 'Totally Cool' Wading Stick - Danish Kind. What most people call a wading staff.

29 years ago
Twined or furled leaders

How to make a great furled leader using the ancient method of rope making.

29 years ago

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