Uploaded February 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago

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This is the Craftsman 945342 locking pliers. They were made by Parker Manufacturing,
and differ from the traditional Petersen Vise-Grip design, by having a release lever that is attached to the toggle link,
that is pulled upwards, instead of downwards.
Petersen ended up suing Sears for patent infringement, over the release lever design, even though it used a different actuation method.

The Full Story of Parker Tools: youtu.be/sNyP09C-HQE&list=PL-fhNrtmTAv286gDzTcav8FyxCagDTouy

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Lawsuit Text:
law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/308/705/133084

Vise Grip Release Lever Patent:
patents.google.com/patent/US2514130A

Parker Release Lever Patent:
patents.google.com/patent/USRE24465E

Craftsman Catalog Ads:
1959: archive.org/details/sears-craftsman-hand-tools/page/14/mode/2up
1973: archive.org/details/SearsCraftsmanPowerAndHandToolCatalog197273/page/n91/mode/2up
1983: archive.org/details/SearsCraftsmanPowerAndHandTools198283/page/n113/mode/2up
1988: archive.org/details/sears-tools-catalog-r-1988/page/n23/mode/2up

00:00 Intro
00:28 Release Levers Compared
01:27 The Lawsuit
02:42 Other Differences
04:11 Outro