straightening HMH micro tubing?

[BEK]

I saw Scotty Howell's Signal Light Super Prawn on p. 78 in the winter 2006 NW Flyfishing Mag. He uses the HMH micro tubing so I picked some up to try it out. It comes in 12" sections for cutting to size. I thought it would come straight but it is curled up like it came off a spool. Any suggestions for how to make it straight? Thanks,

Brian

[rkymtnspey]

This is an old trick I picked up for straightening shock tippets for blue water fly fishing but I have done it with tubes several times and it works perfectly.

Get a length of pvc pipe that will fit all of the material...mine is 1/2 inch and I have never filled it up. Get two end caps to match the size of the pipe. Give yourself some wiggle room in length....in your example I would use a 13 or 14 inch pipe for the 12 inch piece of tubing.

Insert the tubing into the pipe (as straight as possible) and close w/ caps. Put it in the dish washer and wash your dishes. The heat from the washer's dry cycle will straighten the tube within the pvc....making it nice and straight. For tubing with a serious memory problem, two cycles should do the trick.

I also recommend a Guinness or two as part of the process. Email me with questions...

[crobarr]

what about those of us who don't have dish washers? also, does this method work for all types of tubing?

[Benjamin]

Hallo
Just heat it up, thats what a dish Washer will do.
Benjamin