twisted leaders with a drill?

[Camhawk88]

OK I have a bit of a different method that works well. Idealy I would have some photos to explain but I will try words and a bit of imagination.

Firstly I do a 4 strand twist so you might like to drop a few sizes in line- a 40lb leader can be made fro 10lb line.

So you need to make a jig. Get a piece of flat ply about 20-30cm wide and as long as you want the leades to be- say 1.5m.
At one end screw in a cup hook in the middle of the board. At the other end screw in 4 more cup hooks equally spaced.

Now you need to make the chuck. Using a saw drill bit about 50-60mm dia. cut a core from a faily think piece of timber- at least 30mm, preferabley 50mm thick. Then get an old drill bit a bit bigger then the centre hole and screw it in and glue it using araldite. This will go inot the drill. On the other side screw in 4 small cup hooks so they are equally spaced around the timber disc. A dab of glue will help then stay put.

Now you are ready to twist some up. So tie a small loop at the end of the leader material and place over the first of the 4 hooks on the jig then run the leader around the single hook at the other end of the jig and bring back. cut the length and leave room to tie another small loop which is placed over the next hook. Repeat with another length so in the end your jig has 2 lengths of line going around the central hook with each end looped around each of the 4 hooks.

Now put the chuck in the REVERSABLE drill. Unhook one of the loops from the jig and put it on one of the hooks on the chuck. Spin it for say 5 seconds in reverse- it is important to try and do the same time for each one. UNhook from the chuck and place back on the jig hook. Repeat with all four ends seperately.
Now you put the drill in forward and hook each loop onto the hooks on the bit so you have four loops on the four hooks of the bit. Now spin for the same amount of time- ie about 5 seconds. A dab of supreglue at the end of the twist at both ends and you're done.

What you end up with is a twisted leader that wont try to curl up on itself because you pretwisted it the other way first so the mono is wrapped around the other strands but is more or less in an untwisted state. YOu also have a handy double strand loop to attach to a double or swivel via a cats paw or loop to loop conection. I cut the end off with the 4 little temporary loops but in addition to the super glue you could finish off with knot or tie on a good quality clip.

Let me know if any of this is confusing and Ill try anohter explaination.

cheers,

[Mattya]

Has anyone seen the method using a hair braiding machine? It's so ridiculously easy if they came in a colour other than pink or purple you would think they were made for making this particular leader. I've just ordered one & one of my local GT gurus showed me on the weekend.
I will share a how to video when it arrives. I should have videoed him. Took about 2 mins and looked like telecom rope if it were 2 strand.