Coloring gold beads for nymphs and perdigon flies.

[Mike Monsos]

While sitting at my vise I was thinking I wish I had a purple bead for a perdigon idea I had, I noticed a purple marking pen I had on my desk. Hmmm, OK nothing to lose, I put the 7/64 gold bead on a toothpick and colored it with the marking pen. Damn, it looked pretty good! Next, I decided to coat it with Solarez Thin Hard resin and zap it. Wow this is going to work great. Now I have collected all my favorite-colored marking pens and don't need to order 25 or more of any one color to tie up a half dozen flies. Here are some examples of what I have so far.

 

[mcswny]

Have you tested how they hold up to hitting rocks, etc?

 

[Mike Monsos]

I'm guessing that with the UV coating it should be pretty durable. The flies I'm tying are size 14-18 so I don't think they have enough mass to crash into a rock. But having pretty much any color bead I want on short notice is the idea that I like.

 

[Zak]

While sitting at my vise I was thinking I wish I had a purple bead for a perdigon idea I had, I noticed a purple marking pen I had on my desk. Hmmm, OK nothing to lose, I put the 7/64 gold bead on a toothpick and colored it with the marking pen. Damn, it looked pretty good! Next, I decided to coat it with Solarez Thin Hard resin and zap it. Wow this is going to work great. Now I have collected all my favorite-colored marking pens and don't need to order 25 or more of any one color to tie up a half dozen flies. Here are some examples of what I have so far.
View attachment 139034


View attachment 139035


View attachment 139036

View attachment 139037

Good idea!

 

[M_D]

I’ve been using permanent Sharpies for a while but have not finished them with any sort of coating.

I usually do one or two ‘colorings’ and end up with a somewhat translucent color…nothing as vibrant as a store bought bead…..but I have come to prefer the more subtle shades.

Durability-wise, the Sharpie w/o coating is fine for me. The colors might fade a bit after a while, but they don’t chip like store bought beads AND if my OCDness really flares up, I can just give them another ‘coloring’