NugeConstruction
02-23-2009, 04:45 AM
And yes, I am using the term Vice Grips in the generic sense.
You see, IRWIN, a while back, after I here read of how you hung Petersen Manufacturing out to dry, and I then went and shopped around town until I found some real live, made in America of American components Vice Grips, I finally did find some.
And boy they were nice.
But after I had them in my hands for a while there at the hardware store, I looked down and saw...
IRWIN
...on their handles, and I couldn't stand it; I put them back on the rack.
I do not know that I have much choice in the matter of where a lot of the other things I buy comes from, but in having a brother-in-law in the tool and die industry, and with my dad having worked here and there in a few factories over the course of his life until he was laid off last fall, and with my having grown up within about 60 miles of Kenosha (home of Snap-on), and Brookfield (former manufacturing facility of Milwaukee Electric Tool Co.), etc., I intend to at least avoid as best I can firms who cut hard working Americans off at the knees, and most particularly in this regard, manufacturers of TOOLS.
nameplate of my SuperSawzall:
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_nu35IiPOyWY/SYKhp3AJgmI/AAAAAAAAABs/i5YD8vbduLk/s640/P1020547.JPG
You see, and as I put it to a father and a son whom I ran into in the tool section of a pawn shop recently, tools are what made the world what it is.
Tools in the hands of hard working men, mind you.
And if you take away a man's tools, or a nation's means of making them, you take away the means of a man and a nation to keep their habitation from turning back into the jungle from which man scratched out civilizaton in the first place, quite literally, with his bare hands, until he was able to make TOOLS.
So IRWIN, be please be advised that, while I used to buy your clamps, spade bits, chalklines, etc., from here on out I will crawl over glass to avoid buying ANYTHING with your name on it.
Returning from my long-winded aside: here for your consideration my fellow Garage Journal members is some info on an alternative to the IRWIN brand of LOCKING PLIERS*.
(*) As the IRWIN brand itself is in my opinion properly called, what with IRWIN having presided over the burial of the good name of Vice Grips.
My only wish is that I could tell you they were made in Dewitt, Nebraska.
http://www.import-automotive-tools.com/pdf_files/hazet_07.pdf
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_nu35IiPOyWY/SaJcaHf56GI/AAAAAAAAA_Q/TGcqhWZEXdQ/Hazet%20Locking%20Plliers_03.png
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_nu35IiPOyWY/SaJcaKZKXFI/AAAAAAAAA_I/tlaFx3BsJw8/s720/Hazet%20Locking%20Plliers_05.png
NC
You see, IRWIN, a while back, after I here read of how you hung Petersen Manufacturing out to dry, and I then went and shopped around town until I found some real live, made in America of American components Vice Grips, I finally did find some.
And boy they were nice.
But after I had them in my hands for a while there at the hardware store, I looked down and saw...
IRWIN
...on their handles, and I couldn't stand it; I put them back on the rack.
I do not know that I have much choice in the matter of where a lot of the other things I buy comes from, but in having a brother-in-law in the tool and die industry, and with my dad having worked here and there in a few factories over the course of his life until he was laid off last fall, and with my having grown up within about 60 miles of Kenosha (home of Snap-on), and Brookfield (former manufacturing facility of Milwaukee Electric Tool Co.), etc., I intend to at least avoid as best I can firms who cut hard working Americans off at the knees, and most particularly in this regard, manufacturers of TOOLS.
nameplate of my SuperSawzall:
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_nu35IiPOyWY/SYKhp3AJgmI/AAAAAAAAABs/i5YD8vbduLk/s640/P1020547.JPG
You see, and as I put it to a father and a son whom I ran into in the tool section of a pawn shop recently, tools are what made the world what it is.
Tools in the hands of hard working men, mind you.
And if you take away a man's tools, or a nation's means of making them, you take away the means of a man and a nation to keep their habitation from turning back into the jungle from which man scratched out civilizaton in the first place, quite literally, with his bare hands, until he was able to make TOOLS.
So IRWIN, be please be advised that, while I used to buy your clamps, spade bits, chalklines, etc., from here on out I will crawl over glass to avoid buying ANYTHING with your name on it.
Returning from my long-winded aside: here for your consideration my fellow Garage Journal members is some info on an alternative to the IRWIN brand of LOCKING PLIERS*.
(*) As the IRWIN brand itself is in my opinion properly called, what with IRWIN having presided over the burial of the good name of Vice Grips.
My only wish is that I could tell you they were made in Dewitt, Nebraska.
http://www.import-automotive-tools.com/pdf_files/hazet_07.pdf
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_nu35IiPOyWY/SaJcaHf56GI/AAAAAAAAA_Q/TGcqhWZEXdQ/Hazet%20Locking%20Plliers_03.png
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_nu35IiPOyWY/SaJcaKZKXFI/AAAAAAAAA_I/tlaFx3BsJw8/s720/Hazet%20Locking%20Plliers_05.png
NC