The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

I keep buying sliders and then losing them. An outrageous gust took my 5 gram model into a bankside bramble yesterday and that was the end of that, together with my Olivette.
So Ive decided to start converting some existing floats into sliders. Can anyone please tell me where I can buy the two eyes; one for the side of the float, the other for the bottom?

Dear Troydog,

One of the easiest ways to get the rings you require, if the body of the float is balsa or quill, is to cut two normal eyed hooks with a pair of decent pliers. Then either sand or grind the cut end to a point so you can push this into the float body at appropriate places a little easier. And then for the full belt and braces approach, Araldite them both in place whilst avoiding sticking yourself to the float.

Obviously the length of wire you cut should be less than the width of the float you intend to make a slider.

This trick doesn't work so well on plastic floats but it goes without saying that as a fully fledged TFF man, through and through, no such abominations are in your float box of course! LOL

As ever,.....

Moley

I make my own with stainless or brass wire wrapped around a panel pin. Drop me a PM with an idea of your size requirements and address and I'll send you some

Very many thanks Moley, I had never thought of that idea. I guess you bend the hook eye to right angles in a vice for the bottom of the float?

Very, very kind Liphook, will do.

Snip the eyed end off small safety pins and use as above

I use guitar wire strings, young Will leaves them lying around all over the place. I bang a couple of nails in and wrap the wire around those.

For the top slider, I have used a vastly different method. I take about 10mm of silicon small bore tubing, thread it onto a stemmed float just oversize. I then spray the silicon tubing with Superglue activator, blob a little superglue on the outside of the float I am converting, swiftly hold the silicon tube against the float, slight pressure on the tube, and within 2-3 seconds I have a perfect bond, and withdraw the stemmed float leaving the tubing on the required float. I have done similar to the bottom if without an eye, or just bent up the existing eye (wired) to 90 degrees.

Te best place to buy the activator and superglue in my experience is Eurocell - cost about £5.

I have sliders I made 4-5 years ago, and the tubing is still in place, although I admit to only using them very infrequently.

A simple problem with so many different remedies along with offers of assistance. Gotta love this forum

Love the idea of using silicon tubing!