How to make your own Dubbing

A Fly Tying Hack that will allow the beginner Fly Tyer to quickly and cheaply increase their Inventory of Fly Tying Dubbings or add colours that are hard to obtain.
Also for the Fly Tyers that prefer to use 100% synthetic materials in their inventories for ethical reasons this is a good example of how to go towards achieving that objective. This method can also be used to blend your own fur or synthetic dubbings and also add flash or UV fibres to it.

In this video I am creating a basic dubbing for use in a Fly Pattern known as the Balmoral. The Balmoral is a Dee Style Salmon Fly and is one of my favourites to at least look at. I am not lucky enough to have much in the way of Salmon Fishing here in Powys. Maybe if I was born in the 60s, this may have been different but my local
River, Afon Vyrnwy, no longer has a good run of the species, unlike 40 years ago. I have been tying Salmon Flies for framed presentations and have been recently
"commissioned" to make a display piece for the shooting estate where alot of my materials have been harvested for free, as a way of saying thank you. I was
specifically asked to tie patterns that used the materials from the shoot and the Balmoral uses at least one. The piece will be on display in their shooting hut.

To be able to make your Dubbing you will need a ball of wool, in this case a 100% Acrylic material. These are available in various high street shops for between £1.00 to £2.00. You can also use a short length from your significant others knitting collection for free and possibly without them knowing! I would recommend asking
however! You will also need a Coffee or Spice Grinder. Mine was from Amazon for about £20.00. You can easily spend £20.00 on 4 or 5 bags of SLF or Hares Ear/Mask so it
does make economic sense to do this.

You never know, a specific dubbing blend may mean the difference between a blank day and a red letter day if the Trout are transfixed on a particular shade. A shade no one else may have too!

Total Costs
Dark Blue Wool: £1.50
Highlander/Dark Green Wool: £1.50
Coffee/Spice Grinder: £20.00
Total: £23.00

I already owned the Grinder and have created another 10 or 15 dubbing blends so the costs are realistically much lower.