Finally!! The Portable Hand!

[The CoPilot]

Thanks Rich!

Some good close up detail pics of the various components (clips, arms, etc) would be great, too. I'd love to understand how those circlips function. Do they just hold the alligator clips to the rod arms?

[JRinFL]

My pair of Portable Hams.

[sal]

sal say's, "life without humor is no fun".

sal

[curlyhairedboy]

Man, I'd be down for a sprint run of these! Maybe with some larger (knife-capable) clamps? I could see this being a display of choice for at least 3 knives.... :D

[The CoPilot]

Rich:

I will bet that you worked hard to track down these Portable Hands. As you know, they are a little hard to come by. I just found a post on another thread from back in 2008 and at that time I wrote that I had been looking for one for "quite some time". I still haven't found one, so the fact that you have managed to find two is a real tribute and something you should be proud of. Well done!

This a photo of the device appeared in "The Spyderco Story", the book that was published in 2001 on the history of Spyderco.

Here's a pic from the thread listed above:


I've been looking for a Spyderco Portable Hand on eBay for quite some time now. So far, none have shown up.

Here's a link to that other thread from 2008. It was titled "Sal's Portable Hand":
https://forum.spyderco.com/viewtopic.php?t=32234

[Candyman]

Hey guys! I didn’t want to start another post but I wanted to show you all one of my displays I did for my for my Portable Hand. I took the Ad from Popular Science that The CoPilot posted along with the paragraph in the book “The Spyderco Story” and printed them both out and tacked them to the shadow board. I bought some old watch parts as well as a few pocket watches off eBay and glued them on. The guy that it came from was a watch maker and used The Portable Hand specifically for that so I thought it would be nice to pay tribute to that.

[Mushroom]

The shadow box looks great, Rich. Adding the watch parts in too was a clever idea! The Portable Hand is one of the holiest grails for a Spyderco collector!

One very interesting that’s noted in the Portable Hand literature you quoted from the Spyderco Story is that “Spyderco began in Redding, California, in 1976…”

I think thats either often forgotten or often mistaken by many. Although it is easy to understand why some would think they started in Golden, Colorado.

[cjk]

Eric's call.

sal

Have y'all ever considered making frog keychains similar to the one which inspired the clipit? I periodically search for "frog keychain" on ebay hoping to find one like pictured in the book.

--Christian

[TheGiant80]

What I want to know is will it be released in MagnaCut?

[RevMike]

That's an awesome find.

[Bolster]

Wonderful find. I'd love to have a portable hand, and probably lots of others would too. I'd put it to work!! As a distant substitute, there is always the "third hand soldering stand" from various sources that may scratch the itch of those who can't get the real thing.

[sal]

Eric's call.
sal

Have y'all ever considered making frog keychains similar to the one which inspired the clipit? I periodically search for "frog keychain" on ebay hoping to find one like pictured in the book.
--Christian

Hi Christian,

Actually we went farther and if time permits, we'll finish. We get far more ideas than we have the time or the funds to carry through.

sal

[cjk]

Eric's call.
sal

Have y'all ever considered making frog keychains similar to the one which inspired the clipit? I periodically search for "frog keychain" on ebay hoping to find one like pictured in the book.
--Christian

Hi Christian,

Actually we went farther and if time permits, we'll finish. We get far more ideas than we have the time or the funds to carry through.

sal

ooooh, that sounds intriguing. Care to drop us a hint at this time?

[sal]

Very nice Candyman,

I'm honored.

sal

[akapennypincher]

Valuable collectible?

[aicolainen]

As a distant substitute, there is always the "third hand soldering stand" from various sources that may scratch the itch of those who can't get the real thing.

Back when I was working as field engineer I traveled extensively and had to pack very intentionally. I weren’t into knives or tools at that point, but I liked Leatherman and at one point I realized that the previously overlooked Crunch would be perfect as a portable 3. hand for soldering work. A multifunctional one to boot.

It followed me for hundreds of assignments around the world and I still use it to this day. Above is a picture from last summer, soldering a couple of DS18B20 temp sensors in the sun outside. Not quite as capable a hand as the Spyderco, but a great choice for a compact, travel friendly and multifunctional option.

[sal]

Talkin story:

The "Portable hand" was a challenging experiment that frankly was probably much harder to achieve that we thought. Gail and I finished working the Arizona state Fair as agents and we spent December '75 in Las Vegas. Las Vegas was the first city in America that was offering classes in Acupuncture, in which Gail and I both had interest. We have to make a choice. Study Acupuncture and work as dealers in Vegas while studying, or Start a business.

We decided to start a business. The first project was to see if we could invent a tool, patent the tool, Manufacture, market and sell the tool. The tool that we invented was ultimately called the Portable Hand. We were able to get most of the parts. like clips, threaded rod, etc. off of the shelf, but we needed to find some type of metal to make the "joints" to test out the theory.

There was "Freeway Entrance" at the front of the Freeway ramp in Downtown Redding, that was badly damaged; bullet holes, etc.We thought that would work and because it was badly damaged, and it needed to be replaced anyway. The downside is that is was outside of the Redding Police department.

We felt that to just steal the sign was tacky, so we made a new sign out of framed cardboard that was the same size and color of the original sign. The new sign read; "This Freeway has been stolen, please refer to the other sign on the other side of the ramp". Now we had to figure out how to remove the old sign and replace it with the new sign. Gail and I pretended to he hitch-hiking at the freeway entrance, while a friend, driving in Mercury low rider was circling back to pick us up. We unbolted the old sign and replaced it with the new sign and drove off with our "take". Some journalist saw the new sign we made and it made the local newspaper.

We purchased Oxy-Acetylene tanks. We built the prototype, which I still have, proved the concept, tooled up for the pressed parts, patented the idea and went into production. We had to weld the ball bearings onto the threaded rod, which was a learning curve, and we built the tools in campgrounds and hotels across the country. We built a booth to display the product and sold them in our first show, the Boston Home show in 1976. All while living in and traveling in a 1955 International Step van with our 2 year old daughter. We towed a yellow VW "Bug" which housed our tools and equipment.

We made them for several years, but by then we were also manufacturing the Sharpmaker, which was selling faster and we didn't have time to build both, so the "Hand" was discoed.

Just some history to share.

sal

[Woodpuppy]

Fantastic! Thanks for sharing. Any chance you’ve got a copy of the article from the custom sign?

P.s. I hope Gail is fully recovered!

[cabfrank]

Fantastic, sal.

[zuludelta]

Awesome origin story!