DIY Hair Stacker

     I began my fly tying career fashioning flies with feathers from the craft store, sewing thread, random hooks, and a makeshift "vise" which amounted to a pair of vise-grip pliers sandwiched in the top drawer of a desk. I made what I didn't have creating whip-finish tools from bent coat hangers and dubbing twisters from discarded picture hanging hardware. In fact, I still use a bobbin cradle I made years ago from a coat hanger although now it's attached to a higher end rotary vise. 

     Another little homemade tying tool I used back then was a hair stacker made from a hollowed out Chapstick tube. Deer and Elk hair is a material I don't use nearly as much as I probably should so lately I've been tying with it a little more and one night while reaching for one of my shiny store bought stackers I remembered the Chapstick tube stacker I started with. I remembered how amazed I was the first time I used it and it worked!        

     It does in fact work and if your a beginner or a guide tying streamside make one up. You wouldn't want to use it to tie Bass bugs but it works great for small hair wing Caddis and Mayfly patterns. It also works great to stack tailing materials like micro-fibbets, Coq De Leon, or my favorite Moose mane and body hair.