Float Making Insight

[chris_fox]

That's a great article and some pretty floats.

I hope it both encourages people to make and buy such beauties.

 

[George387]

That's a great article and some pretty floats.

I hope it both encourages people to make and buy such beauties.

I would like to think that this has encouraged people to make there own, especially now the dark nights have settled in.
I'd love to hear or even see from anyone who has tried to make their own using the insight as a loose guide, Its been well looked at with over 1.000 views so surely someone has attempted it??

 

[Xplorer1]

George, you've made me feel guilty! I started making my own floats several months ago, and haven't used a shop-bought one almost since I started. I used lots of information sources, including Bill Watson's book, various threads on FM (including yours) and other stuff I google'd.

To date, I've bought all the bodies I've used, rather than make my own (except for a few pike bungs from balsa dowel), and have used wooden skewers and quills from peacock (eBay), crow (eBay and found), goose (a friend's birds) and pheasant (shot my own). I either use black plastic bases, or lengths of round toothpick or skewer, in bodied floats, and toothpicks or thinner bits of quill for inserts. I've also made some loaded wagglers with short lengths of brass rod: judging the length to use for a particular piece of quill is the hardest part, and I haven't quite mastered it yet. I've experimented with brass, nickel and stainless steel eyes, but only anticipate using it for the upper eye of river sliders in future.

I've made some failures - bodied waggler style, using skewers that were too heavy and stopped the float cocking until the entire shot load had settled. Other than that they've all been successful. They've worked and caught fish regularly, which has given me confidence to continue making and using them.

Paints/varnish are where I've had most trouble. I used a water-based model-making varnish that dissolved, and another that dissolved the paint. I've ended up with Revell Email Colour matt paints (yellow, orange, black) and Morrell's laquer. I stain my bodies with a wood stain, and have learned to stain them before gluing in the stem, to avoid glue smears from stopping the stain taking. I use Araldite Rapid, as it has body and fills holes/gaps well, or PVA.

Next? A Unimat lathe I think, and some experiments with cork and dowel: shaping stick floats by hand with sand-paper is tedious in the extreme!

My favourites? Crow quill avons and onions - they just look so good, and work extremely well.

Why do I do it? For pleasure: I enjoy making things. Certainly not to save money! Floats are a tiny proportion of my fishing costs: memberships, licenses, rods, reels, bait add up to many many times the cost of the floats I'd get through in a season, and the total material cost surely exceeds the cost of using shop-bought floats. But who's counting?!

Thanks for asking the question and provoking a reply.

 

[George387]

Xplorer
Im glad that someone has picked up on what has become nowadays a dying art, purely because of the modern materials and the low prices of plastic floats.

Everyone of us has successes and failures so dont worry about that just take it in your stride and learn from it, which I see your doing from doing your staining Before glueing to erase smears. Its finding out things like that, which make it more pleasureable.

Non of us do it for the cost, I purely do it to relax & get great satisfaction from catching fish with the aid of stuff Ive made myself, from floats to feeders to even recently a refurbished cane rod.

Ive experimented with brass inserts and still got a few bouncing around somewhere from my loaded waggler days, dont make as many nowadays.

Like yourself I enjoy making Crow Quills and other river floats as that is my sort of fishing so concentrate on them more but I also enjoy making others, Ive recently just finished a set of Porcupine Wagglers for a friend which i havent done for a long time so always nice to diversify for a change.

Nice to hear you havent bought a shop float, beween us 2 that will be over 10 years & a couple of months of not buying one
Keep at it mate & keep us updated or if you have any questions dont be put off in asking Im always willing to help anyone out, if I can.
Best Regards
George

 

[Xplorer1]

Thanks for the encouragement George. Where did you buy your mini-lathe from, and which model and accessories did you get?

 

[George387]

Thanks for the encouragement George. Where did you buy your mini-lathe from, and which model and accessories did you get?

More than welcome mate. I bought my lathe from that well known auction website, purely because it was cheaper on there than the UK dealer outlet for Unimat.

I bought the Classic set up but if you solely want it to turn float bodies and nothing else then the basic would do.

here is the link to the manufacturers website in austria it tells you everything you need to know:
The Cool Tool GmbH - Home of Unimat1, child friendly model making and professional prototyping

here is the link to the Uk outlet that the company deal with.

Unimat 1

Here is a link to 3 seperate ones on that auction site:

Unimat 1 Classic The Cool Tool Boxed Unused on eBay (end time 04-Dec-09 19:00:19 GMT)

Unimat 1 Classic Set - Lathe Jigsaw Sander Drill Tools on eBay (end time 13-Dec-09 18:59:17 GMT)

UNIMAT CLASSIC LATHE, MILLING MACHINE ETC. 6 TOOLS IN 1 on eBay (end time 27-Dec-09 14:06:01 GMT)

I wont say how much I paid for mine on open forum but shop around, I sought advice from a few other float makers who I keep in touch with and they all gave me their recommendations & the reason I went with Unimat is that it is small and compact, so can be brought into my study instead of the shed and it has everything I wanted so chose the classic.

Best Regards
George

 

[Xplorer1]

Thanks George, very helpful. Maybe next year; we're about to start renovating the house, and I'm getting a new workshop out of it. The last thing I want to be doing right now is bringing more "stuff" INTO the place, when we're mucking it OUT as best we can.

 

[George387]

Thanks George, very helpful. Maybe next year; we're about to start renovating the house, and I'm getting a new workshop out of it. The last thing I want to be doing right now is bringing more "stuff" INTO the place, when we're mucking it OUT as best we can.

More than welcome mate.....new workshop I dream of that...lol

 

[sis the roach]

float making

you can buy morrels with out a account but you have to order it as well as sheen there are differant hardness as well but it more costley i have being useing this in the tackle trade for the past 5 years

 

[George387]

Paul Morley, I have received your PM with reference to the peacock quills but cant PM you back as you have PM messages turned off in your profile, send me your email & I will reply to your PM.
cheers
George

 

[ajwajw]

brilliant article

 

[chavender]

andykoi hello there

 

[ajwajw]

hi chavender