Cheap Ad-hoc tools

[Crawhin]

Anyone else out there have any tips for useful ad-hoc tools for fly tying? I find a pair of robust nail clippers really useful for cropping things close in. Another useful thing to keep handy is a large wooden clothes peg. If you get one that opens wide enough it makes a good temporary bobin holder which you can clip onto spools quickly and easily as a quick-fix to weigh a spool down and stop it unravelling without having to thread a bobin holder mid-fly.

Anyone else developed anyhting similar?

Ian   

[scotfly]

When I started fly tying my first vice was made by my brother at school and had cork lined jaws, my hackle pliers were school made too. The dubbing needle was a pin stuck in a piece of cork. A clothes peg was used to hold the silk. For fine cutting I used a razor blade, the only scissors I had were blunt! That was my lot.
Rotary hackle pliers and wooden handled dubbing needles and dubbing twirls and twisters, dubbing rakes and sight boards and bobbin holders and bobbin cradles, hot point tools, gallows tools and CDC tools, sharp scissors, etc,etc,etc,et....... Hadn't even been thought about, never mind coveted!
Not quite the answer you wanted, but that's nostalgia for you  :lol: