Black Friday (Tool) Suggestion
 

Pictured here is a tool newly created by one of our Dayton-Buckeye Model A Club members, Mike Bogart. This is a special Vise-Grip he designed, patented and is currently being manufactured by Irwin Tools. It requires less force to clamp and it requires less force to unlock but still grips like it should. It all has to do with the special linkage that Mike worked out.
This tool is available at Lowe's home improvement stores. If you don't see it, please ask for it. The pliers is part number IRHT82578. It sells for $14.
I know it is available in the Troy, Ohio area and is available on the Internet. Take a look and see if you like it. (I am not selling them, just letting you know of the work of a fellow Model A owner).
Thanks.

Re: Black Friday (Tool) Suggestion
 

Always encouraging to see good old American ingenuity at work, I have not yet seen the vise grips as you describe, however I might make mention the Petersen family here in Nebraska (Dewitt Nebraska to be exact) were the pioneers of the original vise grips & I have sold these great little tools at a 122 year old hardware store for just shy of 60 years. I'm sure any user has at some point hastily over tightened a pair of these little gems on a stubborn fastener only to have a pinched finger upon it's release...I'm curious to see if that too has been remedied. Ron

Re: Black Friday (Tool) Suggestion
 

Interesting... I just looked up vise grips on our local Lowes website and they did list an easy release 10" Irwin for $13.98. Gonna get a pair the next time we go to town. Nice to know a fellow Model A'er invented them.
thanks
mike

Re: Black Friday (Tool) Suggestion
 

A fellow I met in '83 had a set of Vise Grips from his grand dad that had only one moveable lever, but worked just like a current one.

Re: Black Friday (Tool) Suggestion
 

If you find that you have adjusted the grip too tight on a fastener, the simply solution is to get another vice grip from the tool box and loosen the adjusting screw. Some of my newer grips even have an allen socket for the same purpose.

Re: Black Friday (Tool) Suggestion
 

Re: Black Friday (Tool) Suggestion
 

Oh, crap - another must-have tool to buy! ;) Just kidding - congratulations to the Model A'er inventor, hope he sells a zillion of them. Maybe Santa will bring me one. :D

Re: Black Friday (Tool) Suggestion
 

most of mine have had the teeth rounded off or the jaws are so loose they dont hold anything tight anymore :(

is cool to see a company actually take suggestions from random people.

Re: Black Friday (Tool) Suggestion
 

IRWIN Fast Release Vise-Grip 10" Straight Jaw Locking Plier With 1 5/8" Jaw Opening (Carded)
Sponsored
[Sponsored]IRWIN Fast Release Vise-Grip 10" Straight Jaw Locking Plier With 1 5/8" Jaw Opening (Carded)
by ViseGrip
$254.50 $ 254 50 + $6.95 shipping

won't find this one in my box. Well..may have to see if Santa likes me

Re: Black Friday (Tool) Suggestion
 

As an aside...

My grandfather was friendly with the guy that invented Vise-Grips. He worked with some of the early prototypes and gave him some feedback. I have one that he gave him as an early production sample. They don't have the little release-assist lever.

I still use them...but I will admit that that release-assist was a needed improvement.

Ken

Re: Black Friday (Tool) Suggestion
 

To fill in a bit more about the process this pliers design went through (as far as I know it): The original concept was Mike's. Mike made the prototypes and refined the prototypes in his machine shop. It is patented. This was not a random suggestion to the tool company where they took it from there. There was quite a process that was gone through before it hit the market.

Re: Black Friday (Tool) Suggestion
 

Davey, at this price you won't find one in my tool box either :-))

Re: Black Friday (Tool) Suggestion
 

Black Friday!?!? Here, Black Friday is a day back in 1939 when bushfires devastated this state. Over 2 MILLION acres burnt and who knows how many killed. Many here regard the use of the term to boost retail sales as very disrespectful.

Re: Black Friday (Tool) Suggestion
 

I did not know the Australian reference. My apologies.

Re: Black Friday (Tool) Suggestion
 

No offense taken from what you said and those who started the "Black Friday" sales promotion (and that's all it is) also wouldn't have known. Never the less, some,( particularly those who lost family in the fires) haven't forgotten and don't need to be reminded. It's just unfortunate that the same term has been used in another way. Nothing more than unfortunate. No need to apologise.

Re: Black Friday (Tool) Suggestion
 

Did not understand why it is named "Black Friday". Not very festive, Black is usually used for things that are not positive - Black Monday, Black arts, etc.


From the below, looks like the term originated in the U.S. Another case of one country being unaware of another country's history. Hope this does not cause
too much consternation.


Just looked it up in Wikipedia - "The earliest evidence of the phrase Black Friday applied to the day after Thanksgiving in a shopping context suggests that the term originated in Philadelphia, where it was used to describe the heavy and disruptive pedestrian and vehicle traffic that would occur on the day after Thanksgiving. This usage dates to at least 1961. More than twenty years later, as the phrase became more widespread, a popular explanation became that this day represented the point in the year when retailers begin to turn a profit, thus going from being "in the red" to being "in the black".[

Re: Black Friday (Tool) Suggestion
 

Back to the Australian context for Black Friday. Here is an extract from an account of the fires:

From December 1938 to January 1939, fires burnt out around two million hectares. 71 people died and more than 650 buildings were destroyed. The most severe fires came during a firestorm on Friday January 13, known as Black Friday.

I said in an earlier post that they burned 2 million acres. I stand corrected - it was 2 million hectares. That is 5 million acres. The death toll was not high by the stabdards of more recent fires, nor the number of houses lost but there were no where near as many people here then. If the same hgappened this year, the death toll would be many thousands.
The use of the term clearly dates from 1939 here but it it difficult to imagine a more different context.

Re: Black Friday (Tool) Suggestion
 

The world is full of calamities. Fires, earthquakes, wars, etc. I lost family members in the Tarawera volcanic eruption. 1879 I believe.

Re: Black Friday (Tool) Suggestion
 

I know this post will be at risk of deletion but there are more things causing hardship than just the ones you mention and lots of them are of our own making. Just this morning, I heard a quotable comment on the radio. "There is much more harm done in this world under the name of a god than there is under the name of the devil." Worth thinking about? By the time you throw in politics, it's a wonder any of us are still here!
Or am I being cynical?

Re: Black Friday (Tool) Suggestion
 

Try, try as we may as we might, try to focus on the good within sight.

Re: Black Friday (Tool) Suggestion
 

I have the wide mouth Vice Grip shown in the picture. You would be surprised the range of locking it can handle.
The other picture I bought as a set which had three different sizes in it. Works well on rounded nuts and bolt heads. I bought these before Irwin took over Vice Grip!

Re: Black Friday (Tool) Suggestion
 

Hey Synchro - Yes, worth thinking about, but If you go back before the turn of the last century (1900), you may be right about a lot of people being killed in the name of God, Allah, etc., But, since the turn of the last century more people have been killed in the name of political movements (communism, mainly, but the Nazis, too - the Gulags, Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, Holocaust), not in the name of religion. That is, in the modern era, since 1900, the religious-inspired killings are relatively small compared to the political. But, I take your point about loss of human life due to natural calamities vs. man-caused ones.

Re: Black Friday (Tool) Suggestion
 

Out of curiosity, have any of you looked at the wrench and/or decided to purchase one?