If people submit other interesting stories, I'll add them.
Pliers Found Attached To Shuttle SRBs
From: Jim Paradis
Date: Mon, 8 Sep 1997 12:25:04 -0500 (EDT)
Well, guess I oughta tell my own vise-grips story then...
Remember how someone posted a while back, confessing that he actually used duct tape to (*gasp*) tape a duct?
Well the other day I was working on replacement axles for a garden utility trailer. After cutting the stock to the appropriate length, I wanted to file the ends. So I clamped an axle tight in the vise and started working. Unfortunately, this being a round axle and my vise not having knurled jaws, it kept slipping. So I cranked the vise tighter. And tighter. Until finally I sheared the pin that holds the vise handle to the main screw.
At which point, I put the handle aside, replace it with the Universal Tool (also cranked tight) and continue on my merry way.
In other words, for the first time in my life I used Vise-Grips to grip a vise 8-)
Another story from Jim Paradis:
True story: Once went to a bring-your-own-lobster bbq. gf & I brought a six-pounder for the two of us. the host provided nutcrackers. I broke the nutcracker trying to open the claw. went to the car, got the vise-grips, used it as a nibbling tool to get the claw open.
Date: Sat, 14 Feb 1998 21:42:30 -0500
From: klmstew
Subject: more uses for vice grips
Have a VW pickup truck with an inside hood relase. The handle broke, leaving me with a cable sticking out. Clamped on a small pair of vice grips & unlatched my hood for three years that way.
A Meridian man could face charges after he lost control of his car, which crossed into oncoming traffic and struck an Ada County ambulance head-on, officials said.
...[He] was driving an El Camino that had no steering wheel, officers said. He apparently was using Vise-Grips to steer the car.
...I replaced my rear shocks in my '86 Ford 3/4 ton truck in the Spring of 1996. I used a 10WR pair of Vice-Grips to help remove and replace the bolts attaching the shocks to the truck and axle.
A year and a half later I replaced the rear brakes in the truck and when I slid under, I found my Vice-Grips still attached to the lower shock bolt! I drove the truck over miles of rough logging roads, and through the winter and they were still there! They are a little rust covered but work fine and are still in my tool box, along with the other new pair I purchased when I thought I lost my first pair.
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