Handmade in Monmouthshire
Welcome to Cadno Silk Lines - the only UK maker of traditional, hand-made silk fly lines, all braided and dressed here in the heart of the Usk Valley in Monmouthshire.
We are a very small business - we make lines in our spare time, when my wife runs the braider and I make up the silk yarn stock by doubling and twisting single filament silk fibres to the desired diameter (denier) on a home-made yarn spinning machine. Once the braids are made (with the integral loops and tapers), the line is washed and dried and then dyed to the desired colour.
The
lines are then impregnated under vacuum with our own mix of traditional
oils and varnishes and dressed by hand to give a lovely finish, weight,
suppleness and 'castability' straight out of the box. This process
takes weeks - each line is impregnated and dried multiple times to
ensure a complete penetration of the finish, then the line is stretched
out on a custom-built 'rack' and dressed by hand with multiple coats of
finish. Each coat must be allowed to dry (polymerise) and smoothed by
hand before the next coat can be added. When the line has reached the
desired diameter then it is smoothed and polished (again by hand)
before being spooled up ready for boxing.
This
hand-finishing ensures that the line is supple and ready to cast as
soon as it is put onto a reel. The process involves the line travelling
for miles around a set of pulleys while it is being dressed, which
'breaks in' the dressing and settles the braid into the correct
orientation.
As can be imagined, this process is very slow and is weather dependent - our workshop is unheated, and the polymerisation process cannot be hurried! In winter it can take up to 6 weeks for a single line to be finished, in summer it's a lot shorter.
For some years we have been offering a 'bespoke' line braiding service, where we only made lines to order. Unfortunately, we have had to stop offering this service due to limitations on our workshop space and some unrealistic customer expectations - from now on we will be making a standard range of lines and selling them 'first come first served'. Hopefully in the future (when we can access more workshop space) we can extend the range again!
The standard configuration for our double-taper lines is a 1' level tip (with integrated braided loop) followed by an 8' taper up to the body diameter. This has proved to give a wonderful turnover and very good presentation and accuracy with a wide range of fly sizes. The lighter DT lines (DT3 and DT4) are 25 yards in length, the larger lines are 30 yards.
We will be making the following range of lines :
DT 3 in Coffee, Straw or Emerald Green (25 yards)
DT 4 in Coffee, Straw or Emerald Green (25 yards)
DT 5 in Coffee, Straw or Emerald Green (30 yards)
DT 6 in Coffee, Straw or Emerald Green (30 yards)
The lines cost £135 each (including worldwide shipping by UK Air Mail). We can send the lines by registered post or 'signed for' on request, this option will incur an additional £5 shipping cost.
Each line comes in a lovely presentation box with the distinctive Cadno Silk Lines logo, hand lettered with the line size.
We recommend dressing the lines before use (and during use) with 'Otter Butter' which is the best line dressing we have found to date - available from The Eclectic Angler - Otter Butter .
As can be imagined, this process is very slow and is weather dependent - our workshop is unheated, and the polymerisation process cannot be hurried! In winter it can take up to 6 weeks for a single line to be finished, in summer it's a lot shorter.
For some years we have been offering a 'bespoke' line braiding service, where we only made lines to order. Unfortunately, we have had to stop offering this service due to limitations on our workshop space and some unrealistic customer expectations - from now on we will be making a standard range of lines and selling them 'first come first served'. Hopefully in the future (when we can access more workshop space) we can extend the range again!
The standard configuration for our double-taper lines is a 1' level tip (with integrated braided loop) followed by an 8' taper up to the body diameter. This has proved to give a wonderful turnover and very good presentation and accuracy with a wide range of fly sizes. The lighter DT lines (DT3 and DT4) are 25 yards in length, the larger lines are 30 yards.
We will be making the following range of lines :
DT 3 in Coffee, Straw or Emerald Green (25 yards)
DT 4 in Coffee, Straw or Emerald Green (25 yards)
DT 5 in Coffee, Straw or Emerald Green (30 yards)
DT 6 in Coffee, Straw or Emerald Green (30 yards)
The lines cost £135 each (including worldwide shipping by UK Air Mail). We can send the lines by registered post or 'signed for' on request, this option will incur an additional £5 shipping cost.
Each line comes in a lovely presentation box with the distinctive Cadno Silk Lines logo, hand lettered with the line size.
We recommend dressing the lines before use (and during use) with 'Otter Butter' which is the best line dressing we have found to date - available from The Eclectic Angler - Otter Butter .
To enquire about our stock of the above lines, please contact us by email at stuart@cadnosilklines.com and we will check stock and reply to you with availability. Payment must be made before posting, we can send you a PayPal invoice which can be paid either from your PayPal account or using most credit/debit bank cards.
We regret that due to the limitations on our workshop space (and time!) we cannot continue our line reconditioning service (until further notice...!).
Lines we have in stock:
(as of 03/08/2016)
DT6 Straw (1) £135
DT5 Coffee (1) £135
DT5 Straw (1) £135
DT5 Green (2) £135
DT5 Coffee (Second, I snipped one end loop off by mistake!) £85
DT4 Straw (4) £135
DT4 Green (1) £135
DT3 Straw (1) £135
DT3 Green (1) £135
We are currently dressing a production run of DT4's and DT3's, , so we will have those in other colours very shortly.
