money saving

[mick]

have finished a proto type flash cutter with good results

ingredients

1 flat piece of wood
blue tack
5 minute epoxy glue
sh** load of razor blades
1 fine tooth comb


on the end of your piece of wood make a rectangular well of blue tack. it should be no wider than the razors are long. approx 1cm deep and as long as you like.

leave a 1cm buffer zone at the end of the well. push the first razor into the blue tack sharp side up. leave a gap between the bottom edge of the razor and the wood (3mm min).

[mick]

using your fine tooth comb as a spacer insert more razor blades into the blue tack. try to keep everything as square as possible. sliding the comb from one side to the other will help. once you have a few razors in DO NOT i repeat DO NOT completely remove the comb, it is a prick to get back in.

[mick]

****ing &^*^ ***er, ^%** apply detol and band aid to left index finger.



jokes

[mick]

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once you have the desired width of razors, pour some epoxy glue into the bufferzone . the glue should run underneath the razors and fill the gaps between them up to the level of the blue tack. now is the time to double check its all square. get the top edge of the razors level by pushing down on them with a ruler. otherwise it wont cut very well. let dry. and your done. now instead of me paying $13 for a packet of flash, i buy foil wraping paper at $3 a roll and use the flash cutter as you would a stanley knife. all up it cost under $10. the peice of wood i found in the carpark on my way to work.

[Maxg]

I had a dig into the memory bank because one time we generated a tape cutter, which generated a number of quarter inch tapes from a 3 inch wide tape, magnetic recording thing.
One of the problems you will strike is variable width due to the length of the cutting blades, they should be no higher, out of the guide, than about 1mm maximum.Really a few thou is desirable.
Trick is to get a lot of large washers, and use razor blades with holes in them and bolt the washers and blades together into a cutting head. Use large enough spacers that the blade doesn't stick very far out of the block. Then set this up so that the blade tips just penetrate the film. Or plastic flash. this way it cuts evenly and quickly and you can do miles if you motor drive it.You could even go into business. Our mag tapes were pretty good and sold very well.
Still I think its a long way around the problem when a few craft shops around the joint sell bundles of plastic flash, in very thin strips for next to nothing. Try K mart, etc.
But you really can't beat flashabou, and you can buy it in bulk if you get at source.
Cheers Max

[Fitzy]

A great idea Mick, tho not to be tried by kids or those with Parkinsons Disease like my old Nan.

Cheers,

Fitzy..

[imported_admin]

Mick

Why not have a look at the roller cutters, pic below.

The one I have has a blade that is 28mm in diameter. Already has a hole in the middle, just bolt a few togther seperated with a 25mm washer in the desired thickness. This would stop the blades from moving apart and varying the thickness of the cut.

You can buy the cutters for a few dollars at crazy clarks and take the blades out. You should be able to buy a pack of blades.

[Maxg]

When we started out cutting film, which mag tape is really, we had input from a mob who do this commercially, and they said that you have to have sharp cutters, like razor blades and only use the very tip of the blade which is the thinnest cutting edge. Ideally you use a corner of the blade.
the idea of this is to maintain constant width of the end product. It isn't easy to get a good constant width and to get down to very narrow strips. Mind you if you just wan't strips of flash material, without any thought to the width you can use an axe, but bear in mind the best flash effects are provided by very thin strips, like 2mm maximum, and very few of.
Little fish do not make huge flashes when they swim about, just little bits occasionally. Max

[mick]

using washes as spacers would definitley give a better finished product. i unfortunatley dont have the work shop or skill to put holes through razors accuratley.

maxg
i lay my paper on hard cardboard to cut it, so only the very tip goes though. also ive tried kmart and craft shops and bargain shops. we dont have the range of stuff you would find in a bigger city.

like i said this is a proto type and there is heaps of room for improvement. a good quality rolling blade is worth trying.

thanks for the feed back

mick

[Maxg]

Mick, well rolling blades apply too much pressure and cause very erratic cutting on thin film and you want very narrow strips. Setting up a multi blade cutter isn't hard, using razor blades and washers. You have to be sure that the cutting tips just break the film and the film is relatively tight as it goes over the cutter. Takes two people, one to feed it straight and one to pull it straight. The input is over a smooth dowel with width guides and the output is over another guide the cutter is in the middle. Use a strip about 3 inches wide to cut, too wide is too difficult to handle and just keep it going over the cutters. You will find that the blades do get blunt after a while. The cutter block should also have guides to keep the film in the same place all the time. Once set up it just keeps on going.
There are professional people who do things like that. Max

[Maxg]

This is about saving money right, how much money. I was poking around a few Yank sites last night and quite a few have the real thing Flashabou at half the OZ buk prices as we pay. Now thats saving money and its the genuine brew, Fevvers as well, all sorts of things. Look at Cabelas, Madison River Fishing Company, www.mrfc.com for some fly blank suprises. Lots of Yank materials sites. Cheers Max

[mick]

maxg
i have been fly fishing for about 12 months, on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being crap and ten being larger than life ;D) i would be about -6. the only thing that keeps me into flyfishing is making my own fly's (if i could make lures i would). my best catch so far is a little bream on a bigger vesion of the fly i use for spanglies. followed by lots of gar then a cod that was approx 5cm. i have had 2 barra on, but they threw the hooks, both came out of the water. anyway my point was making your own materials makes catching a fish more rewarding.

[Jack_Lives_Here]

Ditto on that Mick. Still got the "L" plates on. ;)Very satisfying nailing a fish one one you've tied yourself. Managed some Mac Tuna Anzac day on a baitfish fly I tied. Also managed Murray Cod and a couple of small jacks on others. ;D