Cloudy Head Cement

Tigereye

Tigereye

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Sep 30, 2014
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Lehigh Gorge
Does anyone know what causes head cement to dry cloudy or opaque? Especially noticable on flies with large heads ie streamer like Black nosed dace, mickey finn etc.

The cement in bottle is clear, but dries opaque.

Would love to know what causes this. I drop of clear nail polish over top when dry cures it
 
Is this flexible cement or the hard stuff?

Could it be dissolving the wax on the thread?

my 2 cents.
 
Thanks, i thought of that but i never had problem before with same thread and cement. BTW this is the hard stuff.

Could it get over thinned perhaps. A while back i watched a kelly galloup video and he stated you only get 4 or 5 x to thin cement IIRC
 
Water based or solvent based?

I ask because trapped moisture or excess humidity can cause solvent based lacquers & varnishes to cloud.

Usually, applying drop of the requisite thinner to the cloudy spot can soften the lacquer enough to allow the trapped moisture to escape.

FWIW - Everybody has their favorite head cement. I loved Griff's Thin which almost never needed thinner but it is no longer available, (fortunately a have a stash).

I've also heard good things about Fritz von Schlegell Head Cement which is also thin.

Good luck!!
 
Yo tig - in the furniture and autobody finishing biz this may be "blushing", which is due to moisture getting entrapped in the film as it sets. The way out there is to use a retarder solvent, which keeps the surface open enough to let the moisture escape. In our case, maybe just thinning the head cement a tad with acetone (easier to get) or fingernail polish thinner (from the wifey or SO) might help.
 
Tigereye wrote:
Does anyone know what causes head cement to dry cloudy or opaque? Especially noticable on flies with large heads ie streamer like Black nosed dace, mickey finn etc.

The cement in bottle is clear, but dries opaque.

Would love to know what causes this. I drop of clear nail polish over top when dry cures it

You have clear nail polish, why not just use that as your head cement?
 
Afish.........did I just hear you say that? Clear Nail Polish? I was going to use super glue or 5 min epoxy but this sounds better. Superglue is not all solids and would require more coats. 5MIN EPOXY goes off to quickly. I know someone that has clear nail polish.:)
 
Sally Hanson's Hard as Nails, available just about anywhere is the preferred head cement of many.
 
Baron wrote:
Afish.........did I just hear you say that? Clear Nail Polish? I was going to use super glue or 5 min epoxy but this sounds better. Superglue is not all solids and would require more coats. 5MIN EPOXY goes off to quickly. I know someone that has clear nail polish.:)




Believe it or not, I rarely use head cement on many of my trout flies :-o
I whip finish 3 or 4 turns twice and never have had an issue with flies head coming undone.

But where head cement is needed, +1 to Sally Hanson's

I use epoxy for bigger flies or UV coating like Solarez. For big jobs I coat with epoxy and use a motorized turner I have for rod building. For just a few flies, I use a UV coating.



 

I have a couple gallons of boat boatbuilding epoxy but it takes a day to dry.
I guess Sally is easier to apply than superglue. We'll see if I need it.
 
Sally Hanson works well, if you’ve never tried it give it a shot.

I won’t use it on my carp flies though, they are way to smart for that!
 
Thanks. Sally did work well.
 
I use nail polish for all sorts of things at the vise. Not just as head cement, but also in a range of colors as an enamel substitute for painting lead dumbbell eyes for bass flies, etc. It chips and cracks after a while, of course, but so does the original enamel on the pre-painted ones. I prefer clear Sally Hansen for fly heads, but I'm not sure it is any better than the cheapo Dollar Store/Wal-Mart brands like LA Colors, etc. I usually use the cheap stuff for the dumbbell eyes.

One thing I usually do with the stuff I'm using on smaller trout flies is to take a sharp pair of scissors and reduce the fibers on the supplied bottle brush by 50% or more to allow more precise application. Or if you're really ambitious, you can take all the fibers out and insert a small needle in their place. This works well but involves more fussing, which I'm constitutionally opposed to.

The same trimming can be done with super glue that comes in a brush applicator bottle.
 
I travel allot and so have hundreds of cancelled hotel keys. They are easily cut with scissors into long points. I use these to clean miniature areas on reels and to fill the Wrappings on Rods and now I bet I'll use them to apply nail polish. Cut according to the need at hand:
 

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I really like the fly Tyers Zment dries clear dries fast and penetrates well . https://www.slideinn.com/product/fly-tyers-z-ment/
 
Looks nice. I may try it soon.
 
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