David Barnes, Marketing Manager at KNIPEX UK, looks at the pliers and pipe cutters designed to make life easier for installers.
All plumbing and heating professionals use a wide range of tools in their everyday work. The one they perhaps reach for most frequently are pliers, because they can be used for such a diverse range of jobs. Pliers have been improved by numerous advances over the years, enabling the professional plumber to work quickly, easily and safely. Today, the very best pliers have special functionality built into them which can save installers time and money.
For example, the KNIPEX Cobra Quick-Set has a slide function for easier working in very confined and inaccessible places. The opening width can be set directly on the workpiece, eliminating any annoying fiddling around. You simply press the button, slide the pliers joint fully open, place the upper jaw on the workpiece and push the lower jaw onto the workpiece. The pliers then clamp onto the component securely by itself thanks to the jaw geometry. This means the user can put all energy into the desired movement without pressing the pliers handle together and without energy loss.
Two-in-one
As an example of a hand tool which combines two tools in one, the KNIPEX Pliers Wrench has been designed for work on quality screw connections made of brass, gunmetal or stainless steel or on chrome-plated fittings. The tool combines a pair of pliers and a wrench, making it a real all-rounder and a vital part of any tool case. It replaces a whole set of wrenches, both metric and imperial.
Its gripping jaws can be adjusted quickly, reliably and conveniently at the push of a button. Thanks to smooth, parallel jaws, screw connections with sensitive surfaces can also be fixed gently into place without causing any damage. In addition, the pliers wrench does not have to be removed when loosening or tightening screws: the stroke between the gripping jaws allows it to screw with the ratchet principle.
What’s more, it also serves as a vice. The high transmission ratio of approximately 1:10 enables an increase in manual force for safe holding, gripping, pressing or bending of workpieces. The chosen setting shows the model on two scales: metric above the toothed setting grid on the front and imperial on the rear of the plier’s head. With the scale the desired width across flats can be set in advance as an alternative to the adjustment with the push button on the workpiece.
For especially sensitive surfaces, KNIPEX offers plastic jaw covers as accessories for the 180, 250, and 300mm variants. The protective jaws are easily attached by hand and snap into place to suit the geometry of the pliers’ jaws so that they do not slip during work. The soft, smooth gripping surface ensures that holding, gripping and fixing designer fittings or extremely sensitive materials does not result in damage.
A cut above
Pipe cutting is also an important job that can be made less arduous by owning the right tool. The KNIPEX BiX (90 22 10) pipe cutter, for instance, can be used to cut plastic pipes cleanly without shavings. It fits comfortably in one hand and can be used to cut high-temperature plastic drain pipes and empty electrical conduits in no time and with little effort. The tool is suitable for unreinforced plastic pipes with a diameter of 20 to 50mm and a wall thickness of up to 2.4mm.
The blade unit integrated in the tool can be rotated by 180°. The blade can be attached in the centre of the tool to cut plastic pipes of various diameters to length or to reliably cut sealing sleeves two to three mm from the wall with the blade positioned on the outside.
The 180mm long KNIPEX TubiX pipe cutter also makes work much easier. Due to 10 quality needle bearings that are integrated in the cutting wheel and guide rollers, copper, brass and stainless steel pipes with a wall thickness of up to 2mm and diameters from 6 to 35mm (1/4″-1 3/8″) can be cut using just one hand. All functions can be easily carried out with just one hand with the QuickLock single-handed quick adjustment which guides and locks the tool onto the pipe, then accurately positions the cutting wheel for different pipe diameters. Afterwards an integrated, retractable deburring tool smooths out the cut surface. The cutting wheel is made of quality ball-bearing steel and can be exchanged quickly.
Hand tools are such an important part of a plumber’s day and these four tools can help installers save time and money out on site.
