Back in the day, I used to swear by Peterson brand Vice Grips, and I HATED other brands with the "
other style release lever"...like Craftsman grips, for example. I once bought a Craftsman pair new, and gave myself blood blisters on 3 or 4 fingers several times before I got mad and literally threw them across the sheet metal shop where I worked. Later, a co-worker had picked them up, and asked if I really didn't want them any more. I said he could keep them, IF he promised to keep them out of my sight. I swore that if I ever saw them again, I would melt them with a torch!
The problem was that, while the release lever on Petersen Vice Grips springs to an "
open" position when the grips are clamped tightly onto something, the "other style" release lever, like the old Craftsman units, snaps tightly
against the moving lower handle. Thus, when you are really trying to put a tight bite onto something, the Craftsman style release lever will often snap shut on the skin of your smaller fingers.
Damn, I hated that!! So for the last 35 years or so I have always refused to buy any vice-grip-style locking pliers with a release lever which is longer than the lower moving handle, and which rests against that handle. This is true even when I wanted a cheapo clamp to weld onto something for a shadetree rig-job or something.
But now I see in the photos in this string that the Grip On locking pliers
do seem have that same style longer release lever, resting against the moving handle. However, one post shows some call-out feature copy which mentions something like:
"no more pinched fingers". My fingers were never pinched by Petersen grips...but do I correctly understand that the new Grip On design is different from those horrible old Craftsman vice grips?
)