Its a bit disheartening - Its not like there is one place where I always * it up... on some, I'll slip up wrapping through the posts, on others, I'll lose a loop transferring from the hooks to the drill, others I've cut the line at the tip end trying to feed the paperclip through for the weight... and the most dreaded failure: a screwup or breakage making the shorb loop.
On to the details/science.
When I started looking for a material to create ultralight furled leaders for my 00wt, I decided I needed finer Mono than the 2lb I had been finding at the big5 (which was about .007 diameter). I have considered 7x ... But the issue is cost... There's about 90-100 feet of material in a furled leader... So it gets expensive if your source material is costly.
Of the two quilting Monofilament threads I purchased, Clear .004 and Smoke .004, I have two vastly different products (despite identical packaging).
The clear actually measures .0035 (between 7x and 8x) by my calipers and feels fairly inconsistent (like somewhat curly-qued... it straightens out when stretched) in the hands (single strand), and has a very low break strength - less than 1 lb.
The smoke, on the other hand feels much smoother, stronger (though I haven't break-tested it, yet, i've tied the smoke line to some cabelas brand 6x... In 3 tests it broke the 6x tippet every time.... I may have found the worlds cheapest 6x tippet), and unsurprisingly also measures a good deal thicker (.005 - equivalent to 6x). So with that in mind, I have three different tapers made using the Clear, and one Taper using the Smoke.
On the "Equivalent Single Strand' calculations - these are an attempt to calculate how the mass of the leader would compare, per given length, to a store-bought Nylon Monofilament tapered leader. The calculation is made calculating and comparing the cross-sectional surface area. This should correlate to the volume for a given length, and therefore the mass for the given length - based on the assumption that the nylon in the material I am using and the nylon used in tapered leaders are roughly comparable, at least in weight. I see no reason why this would not be the case.
The Tapers I have made are (I apologize for the lack of formatting of the tables below):
Clear:
22 Strand Butt - 6 strand Tip.
Thickness Strands Equivalent Single strand Mass
0.0035 22 0.016
0.0035 6 0.009
26 Strand Butt, 10 strand tip
Thickness Strands Equivalent Single strand Mass
0.0035 26 0.018
0.0035 10 0.011
26 Strand Butt, 6 strand Tip
Thickness Strands Equivalent Single strand Mass
0.0035 26 0.018
0.0035 6 0.009
In the smoke:
22 Strand Butt, 6 strand tip
Thickness Strands Equivalent Single strand Mass
0.005 22 0.023
0.005 6 0.012
18 Strand Butt, 6 strand tip
Thickness Strands Equivalent Single strand Mass
0.005 18 0.021
0.005 6 0.012
Anyway, Hopefully I'll have this dialed in soon soon, I would love to hear any ideas that anyone has for more materials to try (monofilaments only... I'm not a fan of the thread leaders), or sources of cheap, tiny monofilaments.
Its actually quite fun, but this nylon thread is maddeningly difficult to work with for a variety of reasons. Still my failure rate hovers in the 60-70% range... considering its less than $0.20 in material per leader, I'm not losing any sleep over it.
Even at a "25% success rate" (the cup is always half full!)
. You guys are loco 
. 
