BERNARD TOOL identification?
- Thread starter lerchtoys
- Start date
Stuart in MN
Well-known member
The jaws look like it's meant for crimping electrical terminals on wires.
four.cycle
Well-known member
Hello @lerchtoys and welcome to the site! 
Your pliers were manufactured by the William Schollhorn Company of New Haven, Connecticut.
keep this link handy at all times
and this one!
Enjoy the read!
Your pliers were manufactured by the William Schollhorn Company of New Haven, Connecticut.
keep this link handy at all times
and this one!
Enjoy the read!
THANK YOU for the info, but WHAT IS THIS TOOL?Hello @lerchtoys and welcome to the site!
Your pliers were manufactured by the William Schollhorn Company of New Haven, Connecticut.
keep this link handy at all times
and this one!
Enjoy the read!
RTM
Well-known member
I've never seen one in their catalogs at ITCL, link below. They made lots of custom tools per customers' requests, the thread 4.c linked above may have some. Searching the site, (magnifying glass top right) for Schollhorn or Bernard might turn up different ones, like yours.
four.cycle
Well-known member
Not a clue.
I don't collect Schollhorn myself. There are a couple avid collectors on here. One of them will show up and chime in.
As @RTM notes: Schollhorn manufactured a vast number of widgets designed to perform one very specialized task - custom-made for one of their many accounts. Not all of those "specialty" items appear in catalogs.
Which brings us to:
International Tool Catalog Library is your friend
run searches on both "Schollhorn" AND "Bernard" - I have no idea how Mark has them archived, so hit both bases to be sure.
I've probably posted a mess of "catalog" stuff in the "Schollhorn" thread, but I can't recall what or when.
BK
neophyte
Well-known member
Schollhorn/Bernard, and later Sargent, who bought the Schollhorn manufacturing Co., all made specialty tools based on the original Bernard parallel plier design, since the plier framed were readily adaptable to specialty purposes.
Sargent almost completely stopped manufacturing the original plier design, and just switched to making special industrial tools, many of which were crimpers.
That tool is obviously a crimping tool of some kind, but for what, I’m uncertain.
It could be anything from a particular wiring task, to metal ferules for shoe lace ends.
Sargent almost completely stopped manufacturing the original plier design, and just switched to making special industrial tools, many of which were crimpers.
That tool is obviously a crimping tool of some kind, but for what, I’m uncertain.
It could be anything from a particular wiring task, to metal ferules for shoe lace ends.
GirchyGirchy
Well-known member
That's my dad's name...if it's anything like him, it'll be obstinate, confounding, and frustrating. I'd throw it away.
Beerhippie
Well-known member
Beerhippie
Well-known member
^Too damned many of y'all got that joke.
Private Lugnutz
Well-known member
Not if we're not tipped off by a little birdie from down on the Vintage Tools Discussion Forum, where the "Wm. Schollhorn/BERNARD" thread resides, we wouldn't!
Others have identified it as a crimper. I have never seen the customer identified. I have seen Western Electric, Bell, etc guessed, but I have never matched the model number. Whoever it is, I would guess Schollhorn was supplying them first, as some examples, such as yours, have a tell-tale black rust-proof finish that Sargent era "BERNARD" branded tools (made in the Bernard Building of the Schollhorn Division, and shown in Sargent catalogs well into the 60s) generally did not, and I have seen this 576A crimper in the Sargent era stainless steel look.