Free Dry Fly Desiccant

[dryfly]

Okay .. I will start with:

1) Apologies to fly shop owners and to whomever figured out the dry fly desiccant stuff in the first place.

2) Thanks to whomever figured it out

3) Admitting that I like figuring out stuff on my own, and

4) I am a cheap SOB.

 

Ass covered.

 

I was introduced to the crystalline dry fly desiccant last summer and think it is simply great. You treat a fly with Gink at the start of a day and after it gets waterlogged you just dry off the fly in a desiccant bottle. Bingo....floats like a charm again--slick as snot--swell stuff.

 

So I get to thinking, "This stuff is really the same stuff that comes in pill bottles and assorted electronics equipment. It is just ground up. Hummmmmm. "

 

Last month my son gets two new armchairs and inside the boxes are large (3-inch) pouches of sodium silicate (or whatever it is) beads. So I ground them up in an old coffee grinder that I use to mix dubbing -- versus Blondie's kitchen model. Looks the same methinks. A kitchen sink test confirmed it to be effective. Yesterday, we conducted serious field trials and it IS the same stuff.

 

So I picked up some more pouches in the city today and since my grinder is at the trailer I devised a way to smash the silica beads with a hammer...folded a couple of tablespoons of beads in a heavy-duty shop towel and pounded them inside a large plastic lid. Voilà. I sifted the crystals with a metal mesh kitchen strainer and repounded the larger chunks.

 

So ... if you like dry fly desiccant like I do and don't like paying $12 for a few grams of the stuff, you can make our own with silica gel beads. Very cool.

 

Caveat: There may be different types of silica gel beads. You take your chances. The ones I used work just fine--every bit as good as the $12 vials.

 

 

FYI..

Silica gel is a granular, porous form of silica made synthetically from sodium silicate. Despite the name, silica gel is a solid. It is usually distributed in the form of beads, which are packaged in a semi-permeable packet.

 

Silica Gel is a highly activated adsorbent, furnished in a wide range of mesh sizes to suit various industrial applications. It is non-corrosive, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, and chemically inert. It is a highly porous form of silica, with an extremely large internal surface area. The silica gel does not undergo any chemical reaction during adsorption and does not form any by products. It is non-deliquescent and will not change its size or shape. Even when the silica gel is water saturated, it remains dry and free-flowing.

[ham]

Hahahahaha. Thats pretty good, nice.

[Castuserraticus]

Can you recharge the dessicant quality by heating it? In other words, how cheap can I get?

[dryfly]

The homemade stuff attaches to the fly--until you flick it off. Therefore the wet silica is being removed from the container anyway and the supply depletes. Probably just as easy to pound up a new batch every year.

Quoting

http://www.deltaadsorbents.com/silica_gel.asp

Once saturated with water, the gel can be regenerated (dried) by heating it to 150°C (300°F) for 1.5 hours per liter (about 1 dry quart measure or about 30oz weight) in a thick-walled Pyrex dish. Silica gel is non-toxic, non-flammable and chemically un reactive.

[MMAX]

Where did you pick up the pouches of beads Clive?

[Weedy1]

-----------------

[dryfly]

Any store that carries furniture should have the larger pouches. Today, I got two large pouches at Costco. Furniture buddy was a fly fisherman so he was all over helping me and thanked me for telling him. (They had some sofas on the floor and they were still in the plastic coverings. I could see the desi-paks inside the plastic. )

 

I left my card with the warehouse guy at The Brick as well--they toss them as soon as they open new cartons. I'd imagine that Visions should have some as they should be in the large TV shipping crates. Schmooze over someone who shows a bit of interest and leave your name.

 

I've enough for at least two years right now so won't be looking any more. (I feel like a cheap bugger, but have spent several thousand dollars in Alberta fly shops in the past couple of decades--I've no reason to feel guilty. )

 

This is what they look like. This pouch is small.

[Lundvike]

Thats so cool gonna have to make some myself. We should start a whole forum section on ways to making cheap fly fishing paraphenalia.

[Lawrence]

Great find !! I just lost my bottle to and have been waiting to hit the fly shop to pick some up! New Plans! Thanks!

[yodatrout]

Schizat, I've been throwing that stuff out with every new pair of shoes for years!

[esleech]

By the way, Clive is COLOMBIAN.

Thanks Clive, very thrifty!

[flyangler]

Beastly clever, Clive!

 

I'm a serial crafter, jumping from craft to craft and collecting loads of stuff along the way. A few years back I got a cannister of flower drying dust at a craft store and now have a lifetime supply of desiccant for flies as well. It also is of a grit that requires a bit of grinding. I can't beat free for a price, though! I think I paid $6 USD for the pound of silica grains.

 

Try not to breathe the stuff, though, it's seriously bad for your lungs.

[dryfly]

" A few years back I got a cannister of flower drying dust at a craft store and now have a lifetime supply of desiccant for flies as well."

 

Whoa! Even better yet. Saves messing perhaps.

 

NOW I need to find what carpet manufacturer makes the cool fibre stuff that make Ice Dubbing and I am set.

[Badger]

...

[Grizz]

I'll second Clive's post.

 

I've been doing that/saving pouches for years and crushing it. I bought some over the counter Orvis desiccant a while back and I had an old empty bottle of the same Orvis brand. I can not for the life of me tell the difference as to which is the stuff I crushed, and which is the stuff I bought...

 

Absolutely no difference. Seems every thing I buy has those little bags of "Not for Human Consumption" silica beads - I have a shoe box crammed full of them. I figure if they put all those in the casket with me I should be very well preserved and mummified within a few days of being buried...

[Pipestoneflyguy]

Hey great tip

 

I've been chucking the ones that come with pills in my toolboxes for years (out of habit, up here tools don't rust like they will in ontario with the humidity out east)

 

Thanks

[adc]

You know what's better than sourcing this stuff and crushing it yourself??..............Having a buddy like Dryfly do it for ya!!!!...............We did a bit of field testing on it last week on a secret, un-named river in southern Alberta and it worked just fine..............This is my first post on this board----I kinda went underground after the FFA board folded----didn't realize how much more time I had but I'm bored at moment and it's either this or golf...........This is better........

Just as a reminder to all, the Police Lake delayed harvest regs will come up at this fall's Roundtable meetings and I'm hopeful they'll pass..........We have a letter from Minister Morton saying that if the proposal reaches his desk he will "give it the utmost consideration"...........Hope everyone's fishing summer is going good...........

[AdamJ]

How good is this! Thanks Clive!