I have one exactly like the one you have. Got it in an old tool shed that my wife's dad had. It must be decades old and it works great. Grabbed a lot of nuts with it.
It looks like armored BX cable to me. BX cable kind of retains its shape somewhat. I've seen the stuff in some articulating lamps. There's a length of it in these positioning spring clamps I have too.
@@ballinator the rest of the parts look easy enough to make out of some junk too. Some scrap steel tubing, a couple busted hose clamps for the jaws, a bit of wire wire welded to a washer and a spring. I like to make stuff so time isn't really a factor for me. I just spent a couple days making a wooden box for a few taps and dies. But it's a fitted box just the size I wanted. So that made it worthwhile. Plus I like the stuff I make. Especially if they're tools or tool related projects.
IIRC there's a small crescent moon shaped plastic cover near the square drive end. You pry that cover off and there's a snap ring under it. Compress the snap ring and the square drive & gear should pull out.
They are called mechanical fingers. I have a couple different types of grabbers one is a craftsman and the other one is the flexible version that was given to me by my grandfather and believe he said he bought it from Mac tools in the early 50's. Loved the video, can wait until the next video.👍👍👍😊😊
I have two USA-made grabbers. One was sold by Sears (Craftsman brand) and I don't recall who made the other. One grabber is super long -- made to retrieve a part from inside a car gas tank. I have used it to grab items which have fallen underneath or behind furnature.
I call the plastic kind pickle grabbers because I kind of remember using that kind to fish pickles out of a jar. That heavy duty one is cool as hell, maybe it was from some military application
Malco’s strength has always been specialized tools. It’s too bad they couldn’t make their marketing work. I have four pair of Eagle Grips. They are the BEST. My old American made Vise-Grips are second. The Chinese copies cannot compare. World War II MADE Vise-Grips. Every shop should have a few. The “second death” of the DeWitt factory is sad.
Big box stores could never sell a premium quality American made vise grip at $45 regardless of marketing. Their typical customers are content to pay $17 for a reasonable quality Taiwanese made vise grip.
I picked up a few pferd off amazon, definitely not cheap. Also a precision grobet made in Italy for making teeth for small hole saws. All of them worth it, disposable junk is what's actually expensive
In the 12V world, the test light is one of the most useful tools in the box, for reasons outlined in your 120V model here. Even so, some guys struggle with the notion that an unlit bulb may have significant current flow. So you trade off the comfort that you won't fry something downstream against the extra thinking involved in whether your downstream device is getting adequate voltage to turn on. I love the idea of a voltmeter showing what your load is getting, emphasizing the point that the bulb is simply a voltage divider, based on the ratio of bulb resistance vs downstream impedance.
Retired electronics tech here,,, hoho I never thought I would ever say that but one month ago I finally made it to pension. The “series lamp” as it is called here (240 vac) is a most excellent method of initial testing of chosen device and also essential when repairing equipment such as audio amplifiers and the like with shorted internal componentry. Start off with say a 60W bulb, watch the initial inrush current glow to get an idea of the health of the equipment, if necessary change out the bulb to a higher rated wattage one. Having two lamp sockets in parallel is also a useful hack. Oh yes,,, it is also useful to reduce the chances of being fried if physical contact is made between phase and neutral whilst poking around inside the device. (Hopefully).
I have this torch and the butane cylinder neck is smooth. I purchased some cylinders off ebay but the butane cylinder neck is threaded. Do you know if these are interchangeable? I needed a couple of empty butane cylinders to add a filler valve.
The box says microflame it shows a archer style torch on the box of two. they are the same size same height but with threads on the short neck. I need 1 or two empty butane cylinders to modify for a filler. I purchased two boxes of these for that purpose. I did note that archer did also have the name microflame on some of their torches . These are red in color.
@@dogbreath312 Archer was another one of Radio Shack's brands, and I have seen these torches with "archer" branding. The cylinders seal to a o-ring in the torch, so if it physically fits, and the threads don't interfere with anything, it might be OK. Not something I've seen before though.
I wouldn't build a whole setup like this but having a lightbulb in series with an outlet is ideal if, like me, you're tinkering with stuff and sometimes create a short. Instead of tripping a fuse and thereby powering down a part of your home, the light bulb just turns on. Much better!
That's basically what I had before building this one. Just an extension cord with an in-line switch, and a light bulb socket in-line as well. It worked fine for 20+ years, but was a little janky.
The most basic way to break down what this device actually does; It's just a self-regulating current limiter. If you put in a 40w bulb, the load physically can't draw more current than what the bulb would consume, protection against pumping too much current through whatever device you've got plugged into the load. Hugely useful tool for several different scenarios. Mainly used by vintage electronics buffs to protect anything they haven't used or plugged in before and helps keep your device from going up in flames if there's anything shorted or failed that would draw way too much current. That wasn't exactly a short or particularly informative comment but that's how I understand these things to work
I have some Williams wrenches, they are good. They don't make it easy to buy their tools, I couldn't find a place online that sells them, and the nearest distributor is an hour away.
@@ballinator When I went to the Williams web site it had a list of places where they could be bought, it didn't say Amazon, it only wanted to give me brick and mortar locations, but I did just look, sure enough Amazon has them. Thanks.
The combination of millions of old USA made tools still in circulation through venues like eBay, vast improvements in the quality of foreign made tools, and professional tool users needing to find ways to cut costs to stay competitive pretty much destroyed the made-in-USA tool market. It's sad to see it go, but it was inevitable under these circumstances.
I don't recall ever seeing one of these L-handles in 3/8 or 1/2 ... only 1/4, which I have because it came with a Husky screwdriver set for some reason. Those bigger ones kind of interest me, but I'm trying to think if I'd ever use it. Some persuasive comments here though, I'm at 50% right now.
Price definitely wasn't the issue. If it was, there wouldn't be any tool truck brands. These were clearly superior products (I have several of them, and they are the best locking pliers I've ever owned), and worth the price for people who need premium tools. Malco simply didn't market them. Nobody knew about them. I didn't even hear about them, until they were discontinued. They really screwed up. It wouldn't have cost much of anything to create a viral "buzz" about them on social media. All they needed to do was send a few pairs to the Project Farm guy, and they would have sold plenty!
They failed at marketing them..I have many friends that would have bought them. You can still get them through Harry Epstein. We bought close to 500$ worth from them.
