Thomas & Betts No 368 Specialty Strippers?

[outofbounds]

Lacking any “Stickie” for Thomas & Betts, I’m launching this post welcoming any insight as to the specific application for this tool. Bought “by accident” at a love bid auction, stuffed into a vintage Craftsman 10pc Combination Wrench Pouch I was aiming for. At a glance I thought it was a pair of channel locking pliers. Happy to be wrong I think.

 

[LXCam]

That’s a pretty cool stripper. Like the gauge says on the side it’s made to ring cut the insulation from 4/0 to 750 mcm.

 

[RTM]

Directions here. Nice get if you work with big stuff.

https://www.standardelectricsupply.com/Thomas-And-Betts-368-CK-Color-Keyed-Cable-Stripper

 

[scooby074]

Big boy wire stripper. Pretty neat

 

[RoninB4]

Nice find. I worked at the T&B plant in Tennessee (Tooling Engineer) and nothing like that was made there. That stripper is stamped as being from NJ and may/may not be outsourced. I'd hang on to it, if I were you, just because it's not going to be made with that stamp again. T&B was acquired by ABB Group and has, hopefully, improved the "difficulties" with their operations.

I also worked for one of their other acquired companies (Amerace in Chicago) and they shared a few similar aspects but that's another story.

 

[leg17]

Nice find. I worked at the T&B plant in Tennessee (Tooling Engineer) and nothing like that was made there. That stripper is stamped as being from NJ and may/may not be outsourced. I'd hang on to it, if I were you, just because it's not going to be made with that stamp again. T&B was acquired by ABB Group and has, hopefully, improved the "difficulties" with their operations.

I also worked for one of their other acquired companies (Amerace in Chicago) and they shared a few similar aspects but that's another story.

Hey Ron, I worked for a while for one of your competitors. Panduit Corp.
We also had a line of specialty tools such as these.

 

[RoninB4]

Hey Ron, I worked for a while for one of your competitors. Panduit Corp.
We also had a line of specialty tools such as these.

-I will presume that Panduit had better management, better engineering support at the headquarters, and a more informed group of die makers at your plant. Out of curiosity and keeping with the theme of this thread did your plant actually make the specialty tools or were they outsourced to a regular tool making company like Klein?

 

[leg17]

..... Out of curiosity and keeping with the theme of this thread did your plant actually make the specialty tools or were they outsourced to a regular tool making company like Klein?

I can't add much. I worked in R&D at the 'home' shop in Tinley Park for a couple of years literally 50 years ago. The place was very secretive so I only had access to my immediate department. At that time, we would "whittle" a new model from scratch. We had no forging capabilities then but did do some fabricating and plastic molding for some of the tools as they went to production.
I made prototype for a cable tie gun with collection for trimmed ends. Also made prototype for some sort of compound action crimper. I was gone before either went into production.

 

[RoninB4]

I can't add much. I worked in R&D at the 'home' shop in Tinley Park for a couple of years literally 50 years ago. The place was very secretive so I only had access to my immediate department. At that time, we would "whittle" a new model from scratch. We had no forging capabilities then but did do some fabricating and plastic molding for some of the tools as they went to production.
I made prototype for a cable tie gun with collection for trimmed ends. Also made prototype for some sort of compound action crimper. I was gone before either went into production.

I worked in Chicago with a guy from the Tinley Park plant around 2006. I was also in the toolroom back then and recall "whittling" of prototypes. We have chewed on similar circumstances.