The Dyna King fly tying vise review:

It all started with the thought of purchasing a new vise for the photography of salt water flies for my new book. I needed one that had full rotation in all directions, horizontally, vertically, up and down and in and out. But I also needed a vice that would look the business with a salt water hook in it in front of the camera. After much research and the exchanging of e mails with fellow tyers around the world, with, I must say mixed responses! I ordered the Dyna King Ultimate Indexer. Dyna King have an excellent reputation in the fly tying world and although I am no stranger to their products, for some strange reason, I have never owned a DK vice. On arrival a few days later I couldn’t wait to try it. This is one good looking vice! After a short while of adjusting and getting use to UI, I was quick to realize that the jaws supplied with the vice where faulty! Could this be right ? I tried and played some more with adjustments but, I couldn’t get a single hook of any size to ‘hold fast’ in the jaws. I am sure you can imagine my disappointment! I contacted Dyna King and relayed my observations, they where quick to respond. New jaws arrived just a few days later.

After tying now for a few weeks with the DKUI, I feel the majority of my initial concerns have been resolved, but there are still a couple of, I feel eliminatory design faults that remain.

1. When adjusting the critical hight of the vice through raising the shaft in the set collar the overall stability of the vise is compromised, thats is to say it ‘rocks’ ever so slightly but annoyingly about 0.5 mm from side to side. Its only when the shaft is entirely inserted into the set collar that it retains stability. Dyna King informed me that this can be resolved by purchasing a extension for the shaft.

2. The base lock screw even when tightened fully isn’t tight enough to secure the vice shaft from swinging slightly if extra pressure is placed on a jawed hook through pulling the tying thread towards or away from you. They also commented on this point and said : To secure the shaft 100% they would have to place a notch in the shaft to accompany the base lock screw.

These two points being noted, the vice is becoming more of a pleasure to work with as I slowly get use to adapting my tying style to using it. Hand crafted out of high grade stainless steel, brass and aluminum the Ultimate indexer is a fine piece of quality engineering.

Dyna King Ultimate Indexer specifications:

Hook range: 22 – 8/0

Jaw tip to end  21.6 cm

Height, Jaw tip to desk 17.8 cm   (fully inserted in base collar)

Weight, with Pedestal 3176 g.

Weight, with Clamp 1360 g.

Also included with your vise is simple but precise plastic snap on Centering gauge which allows you to center your hook shank to the axis of vice body rotation.

Instructional DVD featuring Al Beatty demonstrating tying techniques, as well as the features of this vise.

 

360 Rotation and Indexing Feature:
This allows the spindle and jaws to be rotated a full 360 degrees to one of eight stopping points, so the fly can be viewed and tied from every position. The indexer can be released by simply unscrewing the brass indexing knob under the bearing housing.

 

Buy Dyna king ultimate indexer vise

Buy Dyna King Ultimate Indexer fly tying vise

Features of Dyna king Ultimate indexer vise

Stonfo transformer fly tying vise