Picked up these two pliers wrenches from KC Tool's Black Friday. After spending a few minutes playing around with them I noticed some worthwhile differences. Spoiler: the Knipex wins.
Although the Gedore has slightly less side to side play, it's default arrangement (no pressure applied) has the jaws more than a millimeter off (as seen below):
Now in and of itself that's really no big deal, it's not really going to adversely affect functioning and we've all seen much worse. However in comparison, the default alignment of the Knipex is nigh on perfect (though this is a little tough to verify from the angle of the photo):
As for who has the widest opening, here they are at the maximum setting with handles together. Knipex has maybe a fraction of a millimeter on the Gedore, but they're basically identical:
With the handles spread apart we get to compare the widest possible opening spans for the two. Here the Gedore has maybe a 1-2 millimeter lead:
What really compromises the functionality and appeal of Gedore's implementation is an odd arrangement at the cam and spring loaded adjustment mechanism. Below you can see that while the Knipex has basically a mirror of the front button attached to the spring lever on its backside, the Gedore has these two small vertical extensions of the button which are visible from the backside. These require the Gedore to have the handles pressed together to allow for the button to align with the vertical slots for the bumps, else the button may not be depressed.
I'm sure there must be some very good engineering reason for this alteration in the basic design, but the whys and hows escape my tired Friday night brain.
Note also that when the handles are maximally spread apart from each other, the cam in the Gedore rotates a little further along it's cutout than the Knipex, and just prior to hitting the maximum spread point the upper cam jumps in to push the jaws of the plier back towards together by a really tiny but noticeable amount. So as you spread the handles the Gedore's jaws get wider and wider, but then contract by a millimeter once at their furthest point away from each other; almost a kind of "backlash".
This would be easier to demonstrate in a video, but here's a simple picture of the two pliers with their handles spread open as far as they go. Note the position of the two cam protrusions with respect to their cutouts.
These minutiae aside, both are solid useful tools. I'm going to throw the Gedore in my bag and keep the Knipex in my home box. Maybe I'll have a different opinion of the two after they've been put through the paces.
Longer version pictured but confirms Orbis.
