What was your first vise, tools & materials ?
when i first started tying, the price was real cheap... didnt have money to buy a storebought vice so i made one... it was a clothespin screwed to a stick and stuck in a peice of 2 by 4...feathers was just whatever i found in the yard or the chicken coop & fur was from whatever had hair like discarded peices of carpet or just about anything... my grandma made all our clothes so i had plenty of thread to tie with... she allways left a foot or 2 on the spools when she throwedem away... later on i got a thompsonvise, the older model what has a knob at the rear to tighten the jaws... now i use a danvise and have tying tools for every tying situation emaginable, (6 tying stations all with vices, tools & tying materials), teaching a tying class and have a walk in closet full of tying materials...
Fingers first and then..........
That is an easy question. My first real fly tying vise came in an Official Boy Scout fly tying kit and was a stamped metal piece of cr*p that would hardly hold a hook at all. The kit also came with small packages of brightly colored but totally useless feathers and hair. Still and all, at the age of 11, I was totally hooked on fly tying.
A year later, I purchases a Herter's vise and tool kit. That was in 1957 and I used it right up through the mid 1970s. I believe the total cost for the vise, scissors, bobbin, mirror, and bobbin rest was about $17. I still have a soft spot in my heart for Herter's and Waseca. 8T :)