New for 1992

[Grant Lamontagne]

I'm not sure it was Alzheimers, it was probably joining Multitool.org that started the mental deterioration!   

Def

[J-sews]

I'm not sure it was Alzheimers, it was probably joining Multitool.org that started the mental deterioration!   

Def

Or was it my mental derangement that led me to join Multitool.org?  

Sounds like another one of those chicken-or-the-egg questions

[Grant Lamontagne]

Dinosaurs and insects were laying eggs long before anything even remotely resembling a chicken existed.

You know, just in case you were wondering....

Def

[scrappy]

Fiskars purchased Gerber in 87. Nice tools Bob!

[Gareth]

Fiskars purchased Gerber in 87. Nice tools Bob!

So, with that in mind, these must be the worst scissors Fiskars ever sold.

[Grant Lamontagne]

At the time Fiskars probably hadn't planned to include their scissors into Gerber tools.  They were probably more interested in the knife side of things since there really wasn't much of a multitool market at the time.  I imagine many multitools being released at the time were low cost, low development budget offerings to test the waters on a new fad.

Def

[Ione]

If I suggested that I got mine around 92 or maybe 93 would that sound impossible?

I would guess 1992-93 would probably be correct.  My company made quite a few Multi-plier parts for Gerber before I sold them the equipment to machine the jaws and set it up in a small shop for Gerber to run before they took it in house which I believe was sometime in 1995.  As for the sissors you everyone is correct they looked like something that would be on a Fisher Price toy.  For that we built the little SS stud that was ment to hold the spring in the sissor spring in.  Somone took pictures where they took one apart for cleaning but I did not see the stud.  Almost all the jaws we machined for them was made out of SS stampings.  Parts had a hole punched where the part would fit together at final fit and the part was left for lots of machineing completely around the outside edges.  Wire cuter had to be machined as well as all serrations in pliers, all screw holes had to be drilled and tapped.  Spring button holes had to be drilled and reamed.  Blade rivets were run on a screw machine, tapped on one end, parted off and other end taped and champered in second opt.  I believe the sissors and awl was rotated in production when they did not have the sissors figured out.  Like most have posted the sissors would probably have been better left out.  We also machined the pillips part of the phillips screw driver.  Like I stated earlier I think Gerber took job in house in 1995.  During our time of production we ran 24/7.  At the same time they had other companines making jaws out of Forgings and Castings.  I can tell you that it took thousands of 6-32 taps to tap that many stainless holes.  After almost 20 years I do not remember the exact alloy but I am sure it was some 400 series.  I am not sure anyone will read this post because this form is old but in case I though I would ass my .02.  It brings back some interesting memories.

[Mr. Whippy]

If I suggested that I got mine around 92 or maybe 93 would that sound impossible?

I would guess 1992-93 would probably be correct.  My company made quite a few Multi-plier parts for Gerber before I sold them the equipment to machine the jaws and set it up in a small shop for Gerber to run before they took it in house which I believe was sometime in 1995.  As for the sissors you everyone is correct they looked like something that would be on a Fisher Price toy.  For that we built the little SS stud that was ment to hold the spring in the sissor spring in.  Somone took pictures where they took one apart for cleaning but I did not see the stud.  Almost all the jaws we machined for them was made out of SS stampings.  Parts had a hole punched where the part would fit together at final fit and the part was left for lots of machineing completely around the outside edges.  Wire cuter had to be machined as well as all serrations in pliers, all screw holes had to be drilled and tapped.  Spring button holes had to be drilled and reamed.  Blade rivets were run on a screw machine, tapped on one end, parted off and other end taped and champered in second opt.  I believe the sissors and awl was rotated in production when they did not have the sissors figured out.  Like most have posted the sissors would probably have been better left out.  We also machined the pillips part of the phillips screw driver.  Like I stated earlier I think Gerber took job in house in 1995.  During our time of production we ran 24/7.  At the same time they had other companines making jaws out of Forgings and Castings.  I can tell you that it took thousands of 6-32 taps to tap that many stainless holes.  After almost 20 years I do not remember the exact alloy but I am sure it was some 400 series.  I am not sure anyone will read this post because this form is old but in case I though I would ass my .02.  It brings back some interesting memories.

lone,

That's a great story!  I love learning the history behind these tools.  My brother worked at a casting company in CT in that time period that cast the prototype pliers heads for the Leatherman Juice (at a newly built Mexican plant )

Fascinating stuff!

[Chako]

No worries. Whenever someone does a thread resurrection, it goes right to the top of the listings...so everyone will see it if they so chose to do so.

Thanks for your information. I found it rather helpful and interesting. 

[thebullfrog]

VERY cool story and info.

[Goatlord666]

and for th 200,000th time...i never knew this thread even existed! cheers to all

[Nhoj]

That is a cool story.

[Gareth]

If I suggested that I got mine around 92 or maybe 93 would that sound impossible?

I would guess 1992-93 would probably be correct.  My company made quite a few Multi-plier parts for Gerber before I sold them the equipment to machine the jaws and set it up in a small shop for Gerber to run before they took it in house which I believe was sometime in 1995.  As for the sissors you everyone is correct they looked like something that would be on a Fisher Price toy.  For that we built the little SS stud that was ment to hold the spring in the sissor spring in.  Somone took pictures where they took one apart for cleaning but I did not see the stud.  Almost all the jaws we machined for them was made out of SS stampings.  Parts had a hole punched where the part would fit together at final fit and the part was left for lots of machineing completely around the outside edges.  Wire cuter had to be machined as well as all serrations in pliers, all screw holes had to be drilled and tapped.  Spring button holes had to be drilled and reamed.  Blade rivets were run on a screw machine, tapped on one end, parted off and other end taped and champered in second opt.  I believe the sissors and awl was rotated in production when they did not have the sissors figured out.  Like most have posted the sissors would probably have been better left out.  We also machined the pillips part of the phillips screw driver.  Like I stated earlier I think Gerber took job in house in 1995.  During our time of production we ran 24/7.  At the same time they had other companines making jaws out of Forgings and Castings.  I can tell you that it took thousands of 6-32 taps to tap that many stainless holes.  After almost 20 years I do not remember the exact alloy but I am sure it was some 400 series.  I am not sure anyone will read this post because this form is old but in case I though I would ass my .02.  It brings back some interesting memories.

thanks for that Ione, we always love a bit more information here.  Welcome to the forum.

[J-sews]

Yes, thank you Ione! I'm hoping you will have some more stories to tell us from back then.

On a related note, a couple years ago I ran into the fellow who has his name on the original Gerber sliding-jaws patent. He told me that the retailers who sold Gerber products were so excited about the new Multi-Plier when it first came out, that Gerber received orders for over 100,000 tools in the first few months after it was introduced! Wow, talk about success beyond their wildest dreams! He said it was absolute insanity for the first few years just trying to get caught up to the backlog of orders.

[Ione]

I have thought of a couple of things.
When I did my earlier post I had looked up the patent No. that is stamped on one of my Multi-Pliers and I recognized two of the engineers that we worked with when we started working on that job.
I thought some of the readers might be interested in how we machined the jaws for them.
The parts we made were made from stampings like I had said before they come from the stamping shop with a hole in the center where the jaws pivot.  The first thing we did was to ream the hole to size and use it for a tooling hole.  We then milled the flat part of each jaw where them mate and rotate together.
I went to Detroit Michigan and purchased 2 Cincinnati Horizontal milling machines.  We built a holding fixture that we could hold in a vice and load with 12 individual jaws.  We had a tool grinder shop that ground the shape of the outside edge of the jaw.    We then machine the outside top of one set of 12 jaws on one machine and then moved the fixture on the other horizontal and machined the other edge of the jaw minus the groves.  After that we took the jaw to another smaller horizontal and machined the groves in the pliers.   The groves were also machined with carbide but this was inserted cutters.
I had a great partner and he found an old 8 station rotary table that we could do milling, reaming and tapping.  He built a magazine on the loading station of the rotary table and designed all of the operations to drill and ream the spring button holes and drill and tap the two 6-32 screw holes. It loaded the table and kicked out the parts at the end of the operations
After the rotary table operation we milled the angle on the back of the wire cutter.
There was normal de-burr work to be done and the jaw was pretty much complete.
In closing I have no Idea why I looked up this blog but I guess it was because I met up with my old partner in May and we spent most of the evening laughing and recalling stories about Gerber’s Multi-Pliers. The Multi-Pliers have been move in house since 1995.  When we started we did not have 2 nickels to rub together but we thought we were invincible and just knew if we would let nothing stand in our way that some good things just had to happen.  So we survived this absolute insane job and grew the company. The shop that my partner started together is still alive and well today.   He sold his interest in the company in 1998 and I retired in 2004.  My two sons now own and run the company. 
I would say my most proud moment about Multi-pliers Jaws is that 2 simple guys were able to help Gerber bring that job back to the US from Taiwan.
I hope I did not babble too much and go into too much detail.  If any of you folks would like to ask any questions I will try to help you. 
 

[Ione]

I hope I did not mess up my post above.  I had brain fade and lost my first typed out post.  It is late and I got to shut down for tonight.  I will read it in the morning and if does not make sense I will repost.  Sorry if it is not readable.

[enki_ck]

It was very much readable. Thanks for all the info. You are very welcome to share any more stories you have from the times. We love multitool stories.

[thebullfrog]

Again, that is such an awesome bit of history lesson.
Thank's so much for sharing it with us.

[Grant Lamontagne]

I don't think you'll ever get any trouble from this forum for providing too many details or telling too many old stories!  We love that kind of thing here! 

It's stories like this one that make me believe there can be a future for manufacturing on this side of the world.  Each day we hear more about plants that close in the US, Canada and Europe and move to Asia.  It's cool to see the US taking some back because two guys decided to go to work.

Good to have you on board!   

Def

[Goatlord666]

Great stories will have eager ears and attentive eyes here

Sent from my Cruize W280 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

[jim guy]

Seeing this post again made me dig old mr pinchey out. Now i remember why it still looks like new!

[jim guy]

Heres mine

[J-sews]

Hi Mr. Pinchy! Ooh, and check out that original leather pouch too! I swear they must have used half a cow each on those things

[jim guy]

I have boots thats not as thick as that sheath?

[J-sews]

I have boots thats not as thick as that sheath?

Same here! Nothing at all like the cheapo vinyl or "pleather" sheaths that a lot of tools come with nowadays.

[scrappy]

Heres mine

Thanks for sharing the pic. I had never seen what the early leather sheaths looked like.

[jim guy]

They are very nice. The leather and stitching are saddle quality

[Bibliojim]

If she wasn't so fine, she would make the carry rotation. Almost perfect. Any idea which generation build, or when.
It appears the handles are identical, interchangeable. Clever Gerber. Serrated blade marked Gerber USA. Simonds file. Plain blade marked Gerber USA. 2 patent numbers.

Jim
“anyone who considers arithmetical methods of producing random digits is, of course, in a state of sin.” John von Neumann

[ducttapetech]

That looks like the earlier mister pinchy.

Nate

[symphonyincminor]

Looks like a 4th generation Multi-Plier (button-head screws on plier sliding mechanism, serrated blade instead of awl, round nut tool pivot). Not sure about the plier head - can't tell if it was the new or old style introduced in the 5th generation. Was there a 4.5 generation version with an updated plier head and without the rivet plier sliding mechanism?