Fencing Pliers, Windmill Tools and Cavemen

[Outwest]

That’s a nice pair of vintage pliers Lugz!

 

[bob from indiana]

I have my Dad’s Utica fence pliers. I am 63 and they are older than me. I bought Channel
lock fence pliers for my kit. I called them “Exhaust Pliers” when I worked in the gas station.

 

[d42jeep]

I finally joined the club when I found these at an estate sale this morning.
-Don
Cleaned them up a little

 

[four.cycle]

They're marked P. FAUST. San Antonio Tex PAT MAY 8, 1888.

Faust / F. Faust, San Antonio, TX / staple puller / patent 277420 May 8 1883 Henry A. Gore /

patent 277420 May 8 1883 Henry A. Gore of Goshen, IN, assignor of one-half to Dalton Dickinson of Grant IA for a "Staple Puller"

Curiously, whoever did the write-up for Wrenching News saw "1888", just like everybody at GarageJournal.com saw "1888", which is why this one remained a puzzle for so long:

"0478. PAT. MAY 8, 1888 - L. F. FAUST SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS - - 9.5" fencing combination tool with a hammer head and staple puller.
This is the first Faust tool I have seen that has markings, all the others were not marked. Patented May 8, 1888 by Henry A. Gore of Goshen, Ind. and mfd. by the Faust Tool Co., San Antonio, Texas. Excellent. (Smith No. 83) *PAT*

but he got the right patentee!

But don't take it personally, Gerald saw "1888" just like everybody else saw "1888"

 

[Beerhippie]

This thread is bringing back some seriously less-than-fond memories!

I worked 12 seasons as a seasonal for the USFS. My job often had "technician" in the title (never wore a uniform), but we'd start early in the season, often before the snow was off, just so the FS could get someone before they found a better summer gig. While waiting for the season to get ripe for whatever work we were hired to do, it was... fencing.

USFS has thousand (millions?) of miles of barb-wire fencing that they're responsible for maintaining. Every spring, about two-thirds of that fencing would be laid down. Some pulled off by elk (think deer damage fences? Try a hundred elk at full run. First thing then is to find the fence.), crushed by trees, washed away by freshets, stolen by... who the F*%@ steals fence?--etc. When doing this annual spring repair/maintenance, we'd carry real tools (chainsaw, hammers, compound cutters, Goldenrod, axe, froe (for making split posts and stays), etc). Often we'd just drive the fencelines in a PU or 4-wheeler, conditions permitting. But when just out doing our real jobs in the woods, we were still expected to fix what we could and report what we couldn't, so... fencing pliers. IIRC, they were all Crescent brand, with no plastic on the grips. Whatever was in the GSA catalog was what we carried. Spare wire, smooth (for repairing braces and jacks) and barbed and some other handy **** would be stashed in the corner rock jacks (what you do for a turning brace when the ground is mostly basalt bedrock).

Rock jack is a big wooden basket full of rocks for those of you from places with actual soil. Turning braces or jacks are usually square and big--four feet to a side. These were also gate braces or pulling braces on long stretches of fence. Straight-line jacks are usually just a triangular base of wood with vertical post and large rocks holding the base in place. Some places, the straight-line jacks had to do for the posts for miles of fencing. Rock jacks need maintenance, too, and are usually held together with smooth wire and ring-shank barn spikes (big-*** nails). Trying to drive a 6" barn spike with a pair of fencing pliers will make you realize you should have stayed in school longer....



God, some jobs, I don't miss! But I guess it made up for those perfect days when the crew would stop for lunch and agree that we couldn't believe we were being paid to be out there.

This would be an easy place to work on fence:



This wouldn't:

 

[GarageHobbyist]

Here is my Diamond set.

 

[jimy]

I wish I had a photo of my grandfathers barb wire fence gate. He had a habit of adding more wire every time it failed, almost never removing the old wire. It was a work of “art”.

Jim

 

[toolmutt]

[edited]… Hopefully collectors with other models will post some of them. Until then, here is a link to a 'Fencing' search list on AA.

Alloy Artifacts Index Query

The results of a database query

alloy-artifacts.org

That made me wonder when the horn was first added and by whom? Whoever and whenever, it became the standard.

This is a pair that was handed down to me by my dad. I know that they were passed down to him from his dad. So they have actually been used by at least three generations. I still use them on occasion but carry a more modern (with horn), less sentimental pair in my truck for on-the-spot repairs away from the house.

 

[four.cycle]

(* edited for brevity *)

I had initially thought the applicable patent on Foote's "Farmer's Ever-Ready Tool Kit" might have been Louis Bruni's patent 733366 issued Jul 14 1903, but having no assignee and nothing that connects Bruni to Foote, that's just conjecture.

It was suggested to me that the applicable patent might instead be Don Modrall's patent 977672 issued Dec 6 1910. Unfortunately there is no assignee on the patent and thus far nothing has been found connecting Modrall to Foote.

It is also possible the applicable patent might instead be any of these three, notwithstanding some design features (shown in the drawings but not necessarily part of the finished product, as is so common.)
874409 Dec 24 1907 J.L. Knight
832814 Oct 9 1906 C.E. Roth
836075 Nov 13 1906 L.S. Loudon

to which I received the following reply from one of our friends at datamp.org:

BK,
Re "hatchet combination tools" ---
Given the broad claims in J.R. Morris patent 607,444 (1898), and the fact that Morris moved on, possibly opened the field to the competing "hatchet combination tools" a decade later. The Missouri Valley Wrench Club Newsletter had a four-page study of these in 2016 with a follow-up page in 2018, and could not come up with a definitive answer for the FARMER'S EVERREADY TOOL KIT, other than to observe there are four possible combinations when one factors in the version with the adjustable wrench on one handle end. What I found interesting in many of those ads was the ads were selling "income possibility" rather than the tool. There were even law suits filed by people who relied on those "income" assertions & found they could not realize any meaningful income no matter how hard they worked trying to peddle the tools.
Regards, Stan S.

to which I replied:

I had a feeling prior to my sending you this that there was NOT going to be a definitive answer, because of the number of various designs on these things - all apparently created by different inventors.
Kind of sounds like:
We have a bunch of different "windmill tools" for which we have clear, color photos -
We have a bunch of different patents - none of which have assignees -
... and no way to connect the dots!

 

[MR.X]

At a a cool little museum in an old Courthouse in Custer SD.

 

[d42jeep]

I thought that I would find an indication of who made the pliers I found at a sale on Saturday but even after doing some cleanup I don’t see any markings whatsoever.
-Don

 

[Beerhippie]

I thought that I would find an indication of who made the pliers I found at a sale on Saturday but even after doing some cleanup I don’t see any markings whatsoever.
-Don

Those were both a great and a miserable tool to use. When we ran fence out of a truck, we just carried "real" tools for the job. If walking or riding fence on horseback, a pair of these, a coil or two of wire, a pocket full of staples and a Goldenrod were all you needed.

 

[WisJim]

I found a 14 page brochure for the Foote "Ever-Ready" combination tool and related items in my files. Now I need to find an example of the tool (apparently at least 3 versions were produced). Here's a couple of pages.

 

[four.cycle]

@d42jeep -
I bought a couple pairs of 7-inch diagonal cutters from an ebay vendor way back. Branded "THORSEN" (with the laser-etch stuff, NOT stamped.) They had the same "Park Bench Green" vinyl grips on them.
Wonder if those might be some late-production Thorsen?

@WisJim - what a fantastic find!
I'm going to take the liberty of forwarding those images to some of our friends at datamp.org and ITCL.
BK

 

[nz44tool]

Here are the images for the multitool discussed over in vintage tools starting on 10/9/25. Patented by Martin Young, #177,977.
As requested by four.cycle.

 

[four.cycle]

^ Thanks!

This is definitely one of the more intriguing genres of "tools" to be sure.

 

[Mark Stansbury]

I created an entry at ITCL for Foote and the Farmer's Ever-Ready Tool Kit.

 

[four.cycle]

@Mark Stansbury - @WisJim said he'd try to get better scans of that brochure made.

 

[What_dont_you_want]

With these you can pull staples, hammer them in, cut wire, twist and pull wire and even use the whole tool to measure 10" between wire strands.

 

[Etchase]

Dunlap 4522 circle B indicating Wilde manufacture

 

[d42jeep]

Nice! I need a pair of those for my Dunlap box. I’ll keep an eye out.
-Don

 

[humber2]

Invented in New Zealand pliers that have eliminated blister production and made obsolete previous hammerhead and parrot beak pliers.

google YouTube strainrite ezepull for a 2 minute video