IndyGarage
Well-known member
Last night I was working on the kind of job we all hate. The faucet in our guest bathroom was leaking and wouldn't shut off. It's been dripping for a couple months, so I finally went out and bought a new Delta faucet and set about replacing it. As usual, a job that I thought would take an hour would turn into four, with a trip to my shop to get more tools.
Well first job was to remove the old faucet. It had been on there about 20 years and everything was nicely corroded in place. Of course access to the large nuts that hold the faucets on from underneath was recessed in the porcelain of the sink and the rusty nuts were made of small pieces of 1/8 inch thick material, so the only way to get access to them was to use the tip of an adjusting plier and try to turn them with just the tip of the plier. This turned out to be a test of my will and the grip of almost every pair of pliers I own.
So how did they perform? In order from worst to best.
Since there are a lot of folks considering buying pliers I thought I would share my experience. Your mileage may vary.
I've never felt that strong of an opinion of one brand over another before this. But to me, this proves the value of the Cobras over the other brands, including the Cobra copies.
Well first job was to remove the old faucet. It had been on there about 20 years and everything was nicely corroded in place. Of course access to the large nuts that hold the faucets on from underneath was recessed in the porcelain of the sink and the rusty nuts were made of small pieces of 1/8 inch thick material, so the only way to get access to them was to use the tip of an adjusting plier and try to turn them with just the tip of the plier. This turned out to be a test of my will and the grip of almost every pair of pliers I own.
So how did they perform? In order from worst to best.
- Irwin button locks - This was the first pair I tried - The 8 inch Irwins have a nice smooth button action, and I've said in the past I like them almost as much as Knipex Cobras. Well not anymore - Trying to get the Irwins onto the nut was a challenge because they kept slipping closed on me. But that wasn't the worst - when I applied strong pressure the mechanism slipped. They turned out to be junk when I pulled on them hard.
- Milwaukee Button Lock - So I switched over to my Milwaukee 10 Inch button locks. The Milwaukees have sort of a "blocky" head on them that was difficult to get on the nut. I did get them on, but the teeth on the plier in combination with the odd shape of the head were too soft to bite the nut hard - fail
- DeWalt Button Lock - I bought this big 12 inch pair of DeWalts - surely they will do it. Nope - they started slipping shut same as the Irwins and they were too big to get a grip on the nut. Not really a fail, but I did not like their slipping button lock mechanism and the ergonomics. I think these may be the exact same design as the Irwin, in DeWalt colors.
- Channel Lock - Next I tried my conventional 10 inch Channel Locks - No button to slip - these will work. No they won't! The Channel locks had the same soft teeth problem as the Milwaukee and on top of that the play in the mechanism allowed them to slip off the nut right when I got a good grip on them - Almost, but no go.
- Knipex Plier Wrench - Some people swear by these, so I gave it a go with my 10 inch Plier wrench. I've never had much luck with them personally, but they very nearly got the nut loose - certainly the best try but in the end they didn't get the job done. Well that was all I had available at home - I struck out with all of them.
- Knipex Cobra - In the end, the Cobra was the only one I could get ahold of that stupid nut with. They gripped harder than all the others, and had enough strength to hold right at the tip of the head of the plier. The Cobras also had the best ergonomics when gripping over all the others and a thinner head profile, and that may have been the difference between success and failure. Still it took awhile, the threads were rusty and I had to grip the nut with the pliers over the entire length of the threads.
Since there are a lot of folks considering buying pliers I thought I would share my experience. Your mileage may vary.
I've never felt that strong of an opinion of one brand over another before this. But to me, this proves the value of the Cobras over the other brands, including the Cobra copies.