Expander spreader pliers with flat tips

[YesIHaveAHammer]

The ones with pin tips for circlips are common, but I'd not seen ones with flat tips until recently. These are designed for plain external lockrings, but I wondered if they're useful more generally.

Like an inverted flat nose plier. The tips open when you squeeze the handles, the opposite of normal pliers.

Seems many a time I want to spread things apart then hold them there, you could use these instead of pry bars and fingers.

I found the below candidates whose tips are textured and not specialised for lockrings. Other models with those tip attributes wouldn't lend themselves so well to general use. Anyone use these or others, or could see them coming in handy?

Wilde G407.B 9" (photos from this post)

Knipex Special retaining ring pliers 45 11 170 (7")

 

[willf650]

I have a set of Wilde pliers that are probably 35 years old and they have a compound action that keeps the tips parallel as they spread.

I honestly only use them for their purpose of snap/retaining rings.

 

[pcrov]

I could've used these just a couple days ago bending a small sheet metal part back into shape.

 

[Vinny]

I needed something kind of like this to spread the spring seal on a front load washer. Ended up using two Torx tip screwdrivers and going Hercules on it while my wife slipped it over the seal.

 

[ecotec]

That style of plier is called lock ring pliers… if you ever need to google it.

I have mostly just used them for lock rings, but occasionally I have used them to spread other things open.

 

[Steve_P]

I have the other two Wilde, but these are the best if you're actually rebuilding a manual transmission IMO

10″ Compound Lock Ring Pliers, Black Oxide G705.B | Wilde Tool

wildetool.com

 

[kbeefy]

I use them for piston rings. Occasionally I find another use for them.

 

[Nobody-named-Olli]

If you ever found yourself using basically any pair of pliers “the other way around”, you’ll come across a use for these again sooner or later.

In fact, a couple of days ago I used my BluePoint int/ext snap ring pliers (that tend to get a lot of hate) to open & hold open a gap and pour some super glue in on something I repaired. If the gap would have been a bit bigger, the Knipex 4511175 would have fit. 4521200 is interesting as well.

Kind regards,
Olli

 

[FrankLee]

I have two pair of expanding pliers and used them often. They each had only one job in my shop and they performed perfectly.

These are branded Craftsman.


These are branded Williams(?) with compound parallel jaws and worked much better than standard snap-ring pliers here.

 

[terrific]

These aren't quite what you're looking for, but they have the same action:
Lisle 47900

KTC ABX-32

The tips on the ktc pair are replaceable and I think it would be really funny to put some Mr. Potato Head hands in there.