L.A.W. fly tying vice made by Lawrence Waldron in 2010. Mint unused condition.

Why do they say that about buses, you know, you wait forever and then, just as you’re about to give up, three come along at once? I haven’t waited for a bus for years but I seem to remember that they came in pairs.

Rather like Lawrence Waldron’s famous L.A.W. fly tying vice. I hadn’t seen one since 2010, and then, in the space of a couple of months, two have come along. The one I saw a decade ago was the one Lawrence offered me, new, for an affordable sum. A very reasonable amount indeed. Oh for heaven’s sake, it was peanuts!

I’d just bought a very nice vice. It’s a famous, well made lever action model. I’ve tied thousands of flies with it. However, it never ceases to annoy me intensely. I hate lever action vices and wish I’d bought the one Lawrence offered me. What a fool I was. Handling the two I’ve been given responsibility for making available has reminded me just how much better the LAW vice is than -well, all other fly tying vices. It would be, or Lawrence wouldn’t have put his name to it. He’s like that.

As someone who has been in the fishing tackle trade for thirty five years man and boy, with an eye for design and detail that has seen me survive in this business, as well as being a very keen fly tyer, I will brook no argument that there are other vices the equal to or better than the LAW vice. People have made this assertion lately. They are mistaken.

The example illustrated here has never been used and is still in the bubble wrap and box it was delivered in and in which it has lain untouched since February 2010.

A rare opportunity to obtain an original unused example of the best fly tying vice ever made for a price less fevered than the £5,000 paid for one earlier this year!

Specification.

The jaws are made from CR12 tool steel hardened to Rockwell RC58. They will accommodate hooks from size 30 to 10/0. They are opened and closed with ease and precision via a brass star wheel.

The vice is adjustable in every direction and rotates on fore-&-aft bearings housed in a Delrin body.

The ample, stable G-clamp will secure the vice to tables and desks with even the shallowest of lips.

The stainless steel stem has a screw in extension.

It has an adjustable LAW sight screen/mirror so that you can clearly view your fly’s profile and see what its other side looks like without having to rotate the vice. Ingenious, elegant, effective.

It has an adjustable articulated LAW bobbin cradle

Allen key that adjusts all of the vice’s Allen screws.