Forged Steel Products Co. Vacuum Grip Pliers Thread--Pre Snap-on

[Private Lugnutz]

Punches!

 

[Old Radar]

Interesting! As I noted to @snapmom, the recently upload catalog shows the larger VP-6 punch set, but not a set with only three punches.
https://archive.org/details/forged-steel-products-catalog/001%20Forged%20Steel%20Products%20Catalog/page/14/mode/2up

Perhaps @FSP Vac. Tools can comment on or share any punches in his collection!

 

[snapmom]

195

 

[snapmom]

No. 4

 

[snapmom]

Punch set with pouch. no model numbers,

 

[FSP Vac. Tools]

Here are a couple more early Vacuum Grip pliers I recently picked up, both Newport, PA. - No. 4 and a No. 5.

The No 4 is a hard one to find!

 

[FSP Vac. Tools]

Woo-hoo! Good thread, OR. And what a way to start it, with an incredible one-fell-swooping of pliers.

I'm about to conduct an ice cube test on the guard and pommel of my Pancho Villa machete, but briefly, some comments on this part of the title...


....and this...

FSP continued selling Vacuum-Grip pliers in-house, under their own brand, after they started supplying them to Snap-on, for many years, and even after Snap-on "acquired" FSP in 1945, well into the early 50's, I believe. That was part of my point on the Garage Sale thread. It's a company that has been ignobly and misleadingly dwarfed by being discussed exclusively as a supplier and then a division of Snap-on, when in fact, their corporate leadership bailed out and owned Snap-on from 1931 to 1939, and they continued making and selling their own pliers under their own name. So we might see more than just early pre-Snap-on pliers here.

Fortunately, it helps illustrate my point above.

First off Snap on didn’t acquire FSP it was a merger. All the pliers were produced under Ford steel products Vacuum Grip even the ones that were sold by snap on. This continued until 1945 when the companies merge when the companies merged, those pliers had snap on , Newport PA until 1949 when Newport was dropped and just had Snap on. The name forged steel products was only on the title of the factory stating snap on tools forged steel products division until 1955 when the factory closed.

 

[FSP Vac. Tools]

Here's a new scan of a previously unknown 16-page Vacuum Grip catalog plus a 4-page supplement, no date that I see.

This will help with dating

 

[Private Lugnutz]

First off Snap on didn’t acquire FSP it was a merger.

Hence the quotation marks around the word "acquire" in my post (from way back in 2021! - I guess you're doing some backlog reading... )

As I have said before in a few other threads, including the Snap-on thread, even the term "merger" doesn't really begin to do enough justice to Forged Steel Products or the exact nature of the relationship between the two business entities in the 1930's leading up to the formal transaction. If you ask the most casual observers, or even the hard-core Snap-on fans, I guarantee the narrative they have in their heads is one of Goliath (Snap-on) buying out one of its many puny suppliers (FSP). The inverse of that (FSP 'owning' Snap-on) would be closer to the truth. In 1931, Snap-on was near broke. So broke that it was compelled to install the head of one of its largest creditors - FSP! - as its new president. In compensation of the debt, Myers essentially ran both Snap-on and FSP for a decade until Snap-on was solvent again and they formally sealed the merged entity deal in 1945.

The way they put it in the 1960 40th anniversary stockholders' meeting booklet was some of the kindest creative writing.

 

[Fred Knox]

Here are a few more vacuum grips I’ve picked up over the last few months:
a) 600-C long duck bill pliers
b) 97 needle nose
c) 600-R long duck bill pliers
d) 47 adjustable joint pliers
e) 386 diagonal pliers
f) 7” diagonal pliers (no model number)

All in pretty good shape. I just cleaned off any surface rust with WD-40 and #0000 steel wool.

 

[ecotec]

Last week I found some Vacuum Grip Indian Motorcycle valve cover pliers $2.

 

[LesserSon]

June snuck up on me!
I notice NRPS is advertising the Food Truck Festival (where Dale and Keith have displayed the huge FSP collection in the past) Saturday June 6. I think the collection will not be there this year.
Currently, there’s a 50% chance of rain, a MAAM WWII Weekend at Reading (with like weather forecast, but a lot closer to me) competing for my interest, and (most importantly) MrsLS is not feeling well.