Aleene's Fabric Fusion Test

with the weather getting into the 60s this week, and water temperatures in the mid 40s, i'm starting to get my gear in order for my first outing.  in the meanwhile, i've been cleaning my reels, tying up batches of flies, and tying some leaders as well.

in February 2010, Casey Smartt revealed that he had found a glue that could serve as an epoxy substitute for certain types of flies.  it was called Aleen's Fabric Fusion (AFF), and was sold in almost all craft stores and even craft sections of stores like Walmart and Kmart. 

a couple of months ago i noticed that a few of my albie flies where i had used AFF had yellowed.  i wrote Casey about it and asked him if he had noticed any yellowing before.  he had not, but suggested i perform a test.  my suspicion was that the AFF had interacted with another material that i used.  so, i decided to see if there was any reaction with two adhesives that i use, Goop (Craft version) and Super Glue's Future Glue.

this first picture is on day 1 of the test.  you can see that once applied, AFF is essentially clear.  if you look hard enough, unlike with the Super Glue sample, you can see the droplet of Goop i placed in the center, and how it did not mix with the AFF. 

this second picture was taken after one month.  the samples were placed indoors, but near a window to absorb sunlight during the daylight hours. 

you can see that while the Goop and Control samples remained essentially transparent, the sample mixed with Super Glue yellowed slightly and curled/shriveled a bit (hard to see in the picture), particularly around the edges.  this reaction was evident within the first few hours of the test, but worsened over the following day.  another observation is that after fully 'curing', the AFF in the Goop and Control samples remained slightly flexible, whereas the Super Glue sample had turned extremely hard and brittle.

this test confirmed my hypothesis that indeed a chemical reaction had occurred in my albie fly.  as you can see, the albie fly is quite yellow, and this photo was taken 5 months after tying the fly.  when tying, i had used quite a bit of Super Glue to stabilize and build up the pearl braid body, forming a belly.  it's amazing that the Super Glue reacts with the AFF so significantly. 

anyways, now i know, and now you know!  here's where i get AFF.