Thread revival as I have some inherited MOLE Grips .
They are proper decent effort .
Early version in 1955 was straight jaw and welding clamps and pipe cutter grips made in Birmingham, jaws were replaceable on straight jaw grips, jaw inserts did come in 2 types of concave pattern also .
They moved to Newport in 1960 and produced the shaped single forged pliers jaw from the new factory.
They used 2 pressed pins to attach single forged top jaw style and overall range construction is thick quality metal and sturdy round stock bar forming release lever of a class 2 lever principle that gives more mechanical advantage and is pull rather than visegrip style push .
MOLE company/brand was bought by Stanley around late 70's or very early 80's and Stanley just used the MOLE branding and some patents and manufactured in Spain from what is now Grip-on .
No idea if Grip-on was established brand name at that point but they still use the MOLE pressed pin and pull type lever to this day and assume it inherited from days of doing Stanley MOLE production .
The jaw tooth design on Stanley MOLES seems be a MOLE design type offered in the replaceable jaw models .
A sad ending much like dewitt nebraska to a British tool legend and 600 jobs and a welsh towns pride, in the days of local product pride they had billboards about the MOLE company/products as you drove into newport and postal service had stamps and slogans put on mail that went through the reqion .
Today Stanley don't even use the MOLE brand as they flogged that to death in no time and like all these big scumbag companies (Malco excluded) went for lower cost manufacture shite out of China for pure ruthless greed ...
these grips are from mid 70's Newport plant, nicely made .
these welding grips are over 60 years old and work great, needs a new spring fitted but besides that they solid as day made .
Stanley MOLE (Spain Grip-On)
And Welcome!
