hand-tool question

[xela]

When I was a kid, my dad had several cutting tools of the basic pliers form that had a couple of complementary special features: a spring that hold the jaws open, and a latch that would resist the spring, so you could put the tool away with the jaws closed. My dad had end-nips, dykes, tinsnips, and several other tools with this pair of features. Spring-opening-jaws remain a common feature — but latches to keep the tool closed seem to have disappeared from pretty much everything except gardening shears

Two secateurs with latching handles

I do occasionally find special-purpose tools (e.g., toenail clippers) that latch. But right now I'm shopping to flesh out our toolkit at work, and just not finding them. This seems like a really odd feature to have disappeared: If you store your tools flat in a toolchest drawer or on a pegboard with a custom place for every tool, the latch is not a very useful feature. But if, between uses, your tools go into a drawer or toolbox loose, with a jumble of other tools — like at least 80% of tools in regular use — then it's a mind-numbingly obvious feature to want: It damages the edges of cutting tools to be jumbling up against one-another. And it damages the hands of anyone reaching into such a jumble to find a particular tool.

I figure (hope) I must be missing some obvious term to Google on. Surely at least one of the quality German tool manufacturers recognizes the usefulness of this feature that was common 40 years ago, and still includes it on their tools. Surely. Right?

Any and all clues appreciated.

Comments

[alierak.livejournal.com]

I think most brands of aviation snips still come with a latch, fwiw.

[yakshaver.livejournal.com]

A little Googling suggests you're right. Unfortunately they are rarely otherwise the Right Tool^TM for my purposes. To the point, while I'm pretty sure I own a pair, I have no idea where they are.

Right now I'm link-chasing after some of the manufacturer names I don't recognize in my Google results. Which is leading to some beautiful tools  — check out the Klenk Offset Snips (about halfway down the page).

(And from that same company — a US manufacturer, no less — a genuinely innovative hand tool that I very much want. (For some reason their 'video' link is a .mov instead of a youtube link. I found it worthwhile to download and watch.))

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

Rubber bands may be your friend. :-)

[mary-anne wolf (from livejournal.com)]

If I were buying tools for a business, I would ask at
Mc Kittrick Industrial Supply Inc
60 Fletcher Street
Lowell, MA 01854
(978) 458-4593

[yakshaver.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Judging by the little info I can find online --- their streetview picture, their location, their name --- it sounds like it might well be one of those old-school big meandering hardware stores that caters to the trades. The sort of place I used to wander around for inspiration as a kid and haven't seen one of in the flesh for 20 years. (Massey's in Cambridge had some of that, but it was really primarily an excellent residential neighborhood hardware store. And didn't have the sort of thousand-sq-ft scale of the places I'm remembering. Of course, I may be reading too much in to limited information....

[yakshaver.livejournal.com]

May well be. But I'd find one of the several right ways to solve the problem (four that I know of) before turning to a kludge.