I have never tried using silk thread, and I did search for this answer with no luck, why / when do you use silk thread?

Steve

You use silk when you want to, it is as simple as that.

LOL, If I have a good selection of nylon and metallic threads, why would I add silk thread to the mix? strength? transparent? stronger? Just trying to figure out why one would want to use it

Steve

It's extremely fine, that's the reason. When I am building lightweight fly rods and want to keep buildup as fine as possible that is what I choose. Add to that, the colors and translucency of silk is unmatched so for rods that call for any of the above, silk is the answer. Not better or worse, just different. The difference being; finer, better colors and better translucency.

All good info from above.

I read an article that shows how the white silk thread becomes transparent when the finish is applied giving the illusion of an unwrapped guide.

Get a small spool of silk and some scrap material and play with it.

Have fun

Silk was used before nylon was developed, since then, nylon has replaced silk for most rod wrapping applications, in addition to Jamie's comments above, it is used today when wanting to build bamboo rods traditionally.

FYI, if you want transparent / clear / ghost wraps use natural color silk, which appears to be a rather dull white and which is the natural color of silk that has not been dyed. Silk labeled white is often dyed white and is not what you want for transparent / clear / ghost wraps.

I used to use silk for all my weaves because the color selection allowed me to match Mother Nature, but harder to maintain spool color with any CP.

I recently used size 100 silk on my first bamboo fly rod build - the wraps are beautiful - like colored epoxy.
Just be sure to have good magnifier glasses - the cross wraps can be hard to see!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/30/2022 04:43PM by Ed Rose.

You can get Silk in "A" size like other threads, since it is a natural fiber, it absorbs more finish which it why you can see through it so well compared the synthetics. Properly spun silk is stronger than nylon, it is the strongest natural fiber. You can get silk metallics also.

Perfect, thanks for all the info. I'll give it a try.

Steve