lets talk about wire
1. ever wonder what the diameter of ultrawire is?
ultra wire diameters (yes i measured them with a micrometer)
i generally us the small and brassie sizes
if you prefer the craft shop wire (which can be too large for most fly tying applications) try looking for sizes of 30 gauge and smaller
2. another source of fly tying wire is that old appliance electrical cord. cut it into managable 6 inch lengths and strip off all but 1 inch of insulation.
3. gold, silver and copper colored wire is a good starting point for your wire collection. additional colors can be added later on as your fly tying progresses.
4. old appliance electrical cords is just one source of wire. electric motors, coils, speaker wire, old headphones etc all contain wires that can be used in fly tying
5. many recipes call for "
fine gold, silver or copper" wire. thats when i will substitute either the x-small, small and even the brassie size ultra wire depending on the fly size.
however, i use the "brassie" size for most of my tying
i very seldom use the medium size wire. i think i have only 2 spools of it
if i were to pick 1 size of wire for bodies and ribbing it would be the brassie size
i'm not saying that you should all run out and buy ultra wire. if you currently have a "fine" or "medium" size wire use it. wire is there to provide a little glitter to the fly along with segmentation. some might even say its good for adding weight to the fly but i say thats nonsense when youre only wrapping an inch of wire (check the chart above for wire weight. do the math)