Streamer cheeks, classic salmon sides, steelhead cheeks, and Dee sides all exhibit a common feather. A feather that every fly tier tying these patterns possesses is the Jungle Cock (Grey Junglefowl, Gallus sonnerati) feather. The JC feather / nail (enamel neck hackle feather) presents a natural eye for fishing flies, an accent point for display flies, and no other feather comes close to it's distinct pattern. Many patterns call for the JC nail for sides/cheeks and there are a good number of patterns that exploit the unique feathers as part of an underwing, for example the Durham Ranger, Floodtide, and Black dog.
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Perfect JC nails are expensive and difficult to find. Supreme graded skins or feathers have excellent color and relatively few splits (vertical separation in the enamel part of the feather) if any. There will be no attempt here to describe the grading process, but there is no question about quality when you see and handle a premium skin. If you're producing flies to be sold as art and display, you probably have invested in the very best JC.
For example, a premium skin (neck or cape from the Jungle Cock Rooster) starts in the $150 range and goes up over $250. Supreme graded skins are just as their name suggests at a premium both in cost and availability. Don't purchase a premium skin unless you can see it or trust the seller to pick one in your best interest. A grade 3 (bottom of the barrel) skin will cost $20 to $50. Sort through the grade 3 skins for the best coloring possible as hundreds are available online and at the auction that starts with “E”. Be very choosy about color and nail size when you look through the low end skins, and expect lots of splits.
Example of a grade 3, $30 skin, with pretty good color and lots of splits:
If you're a published tier, or sought after display tier you have a premium skin. For the rest of us fly “hacks”, a fixed nail is a reasonable alternative to feathers which cost three to four times the price of a split. We can concentrate on shopping for good color and buy less expensive skins and feathers with out regard to the number of split feathers.
Many techniques have been used to fix JC nails, from fingernail polish to super glue. The technique that is being described here is fast, easy, and permanent. This procedure was developed by Ronn Lucas Sr. and can be seen on his web site: http://www.ronnlucassr.com/lesson6.htm and these and additional pictures are available at: http://www/ronnlucassr.com/jcfix.htm . Using Ronn's technique, I've found it beneficial to fix a number of nails at a time and store them by size.
The three steps that Ronn describes on his web site are:
1. Align the fibers so all the barbs (splits) are touching in the “eye” area. 2. Heat an instrument (dental tool or flattened wire) enough to pick up some glue (hot melt glue stick),which should be just hot enough to transfer to the back of the feather but cool enough that it doesn't flow through the feather to the good side. 3. Apply the glue to the back of the nail, and hold the barbs for a couple of seconds until the glue cools. The following pictures will attempt to show the technique.
The tools for “doing” your nails.
A nail to be repaired
Align the split barbs.
Get a bit of glue ready
a dab to the back of the feather
Hold for a couple of seconds, and you have a very usable grade 3 feather.
Now, if we could just find Indian Crow, and Chatterer this cheap that look this good we would be in feather heaven.
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