Need advice for wrapping hair around a tube before casting.

[CabinetMaker]

Hi all. I am attempting to make a special presentation pen for a good friend. I have some horse hair from her two horses that I want to cast into a pen blank. My plan is to wrap the hair around the tube before casting. Does anybody have any suggests wrapping the hair around the tube and keeping it in place during casting? Mu initial thought was to coat the tube with a small amount of epoxy and then wrap the hair around it and let the epoxy dry. Any suggests would be be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Woodchipper]

Interesting. A very thin coat of a slow setting epoxy should work. The 5 minute stuff is too fast for me. Thought of a couple of smarty answers but will cease and desist.

 

[jttheclockman]

Without listing all the threads on this subject I thought I would link the search results and you can comb through them and see if there is some info that helps you. https://www.penturners.org/search/7458/?q=making+a+horse+hair+pen&o=relevance

 

[1080Wayne]

Have never done horse hair , but have done moose hair . For that . I painted the tube bright red with fingernail polish , let it dry , then carefully individually (maybe groups of 2 or 3) laid the hairs lengthwise , held on at each end with a micro drop of CA . Assume you are thinking of mane or tail hair . The coarser the better for the approach I used .

 

[Roly]

I would hold the wrapping hir with a smll drop od CA at the start and finish and then give liberal coat of fly tying head cement. Always held my horse hair flies. Alternatively you could hold the horse hair with s couple of wraps of colours cotton at the start and finish and then give it a coat of head cement. The technique for this is well explained in the articles on thread wrapping in the penturners library.

Regards
Roly

 

[Woodchipper]

Fly tiers also use Sally Hannon's Hard as Nails for head cement. Think that is the name.

 

[Wayne]

This sounds like an interesting topic for a tutorial in the library.
Anyone want to put a helpful one?

 

[JoeCallahan]

If you're using a "tube in" mold, you can put the end of the hair inside the tube and use the rubber stoppers to hold it in place. I'm not sure exactly how thick the hair is, but this method has worked for me when wrapping tubes in thread.

-Joe