?????Leisenring Vise????????

[Jim Slattery]

I was just going through my personal Fly Tying drawers to check for any critters and what not. Well I lost my favorite Starling Skin it was a beaut but now gone forever, lost a patch or two of hair and fur. Anyway I had to do a deep inspection and put the Enoz moth balls in the drawers and containers. I do this every year before I full time it up at Campfire Lodge sans the moth eaten starling and fur. In one of the bottom drawers I found my odd old tools and vises which contained this old hand made vise. The design and shape of the jaw just grabbed my attention and there was something very familiar about the vise.

So I take out the Leisenring Handwritten Manuscripts and Notebooks. In there is a section that has Leisenring's hand drawn with notes on tools. Apparently at some point he sent someone a "blueprint"of his Vise, perhaps Dick Clark or Pete Hidy, I guess I should check more thoroughly. I took the vise apart and put the Jaws on the blue print and they were the same size, and the vise jaws were pretty close within a 1/16th of an inch. Curiously there is a note that the jaws should only be cut 1 1/4 of an inch "to keep a strong spring". The jaws on this vice have been cut over 3 inches long. The shaft of the vise in the blueprint is also thicker. Curiously the shaft on this vise is as thick as the screw section on bottom of the vise in the blueprint. On this vise it is a 1/16 of an inch narrower and tapers down. Also the bottom of the shaft has been broken, conceivably this is where the screw threads would have been.

This is an old vise. There is no proof and I may just be chasing ghosts but the similarities are striking at least to me. Could this be Leisenring's first vise attempt? I don't know? I recollect that I bought this vise and one or two more on ebay probably 18 years ago and it came from Pennsylvania or perhaps Ohio, before I bought the manuscripts. I'm going to have to do some more investigating.

[Theroe]

Oh BOY - if only that vise could talk!!

Nice find, Jim...


Dana

[ronr]

inresting that the jaws are the same design, basically, that Peak uses on their vises. I think I better start adding some bug protection besides the cedar blocks i've been using. I haven't lost any items to the bugs yet, but i haven't stored them as long as you have, and the desert climate doesn't have quite so many bugs....

[narcodog]

Someone on FB just posted a photo Big Jim's vise.

[newriverspey]

narcodog, would you mind posting a link to the FB post? Thanks

[narcodog]

I don't know how.

[hankaye]

narcodog, Howdy;

Simply highlight the link address in the header bar (next to the house symbol
where all the HTTPs and wwws live), left click and choose 'Copy', then 'Paste'
when you've gotten back to this page EZ PZ. "So simple even a caveman can do it."
,

hank

[hankaye]

Howdy All;

Got to thinking about this and deceided to look into my copy of "The Art & Tying ..."
Mine is the 1971 version 3rd printing 01/73.
On pg 22 there is a photo of ? (Leisenring), sitting at a bench with a vise (his???),
in front of him. Now is it the same vise as shown on pg.37 where the list of materials
for tying is shown in a photo ???? Can not tell as the knob is not clear in the photo but
the photo on pg. 22 showes a vise with not a knurled knob rather a "T" handle type of
tightener.
Now also in Ch. 9 (My Method of Tying A Fly), there are several photos of someone tying
on a vise that is quite different, but we can ask the credited photographer, our own Lance Hidy.
Question is is this your Dad tying on his own vise for the book or Big Jim tying on his own
vise?
Hey Lance, time to take a trip in the Way-Back Machine ...

...and for Jim S. Perhaps the longer cut behind the jaws was because they (Jaws), may
have been to stiff and required more flex to function properly. Lots of designs get modified
before and after production. Ask Ray.

hank

[daringduffer]

Photos of vices in my 1941 copy are credited to Jack Cameron and George E. Deininger. It isn't clear to me who these vices belong to. They don't look quite the same as Jim's vice. This proves nothing.

dd

[gingerdun]

Jim, your vise has a lot of similarities to these vises that are known to have been made by Leisenring. Why is yours black?