I'm talking about a fly tying bench/station. Since I've been tying, I've been overwhelmed with the amount of real estate and storage containers needed for everything. About six months ago, my brother-in-law Nick (who is a carpenter) decided to design his own portable fly tying bench. His turned out to be pretty useful so I gave it a go.
I dont have pictures of the original, but it was just a very basic box with an arm to hold the vise, a few holes drilled in it for tools, and a couple nails to hold in some thread. And for the record, it was ugly as hell. I'm a Project Manager, not a carpenter. Cut me some slack.
It worked for a while, but now that I have so much more stuff, I felt like I needed to tweak it.
I added a bottom to catch all the garbage that accumulates under your vice. I shorted the arm to lock on the vise (come to think of it, I really want a pedestal now), added an extra shelf along the back, and added 4 inch aluminum bars for spools. Each bar holds three spools. Also threw in a magnet near the vise for a place to hold hooks and finished flies. I'm pretty happy with it now that I have my stuff in it, but I wont be able to really tell how nice it is until after I've used it for a while.
I think my favorite part is the little area under the new shelf where I can store my hooks. Once I have a final prototype that I like, I'll most likely buy some nice wood and beg one of my family members who is a much more skillfull craftsman than I to put it together. This cost me less than $6. The wood was from the culling cart at Home Depot and it was about $2.50 total. The aluminum bar was another $2.50.
Here it is, in all it's glory.
Here's the area underneath the shelf to store the hooks.
And more more thing...How the hell did a picture of Tila Tequila come up when I Google image searched for Johnny Bench?
Found ya by the way of Troutrageous. Looks like you have a nice little tying area set up. Dustin is trying to think of some clever ways to store all his tying materials. It is amazing how quickly all the tying goodies accumulate. Tila Tequila and Johnny Bench...is there a man or a woman alive that this woman is not linked?!
ReplyDelete-stephanie
Nice quick solution.
ReplyDeleteI have the same vise and you can get a seperate pedestal base for it if you really want. I think they are about $20.
Great blog
Andrew
hey guys, thanks for stopping by.
ReplyDeleteStephanie, check this link. It will give him some ideas.
http://globalflyfisher.com/tiebetter/tying_bench/index.php#6_result
Andrew, thanks again. I'm actually looking at upgrading the vise. It's a pain with bigger hooks. Anything over a 12 gives me issues. I'm hoping to get an Anvil. I only bought it because I was just starting out and I only paid 35 bux for it at Somerset. It definitely served it's purpose though!