On our never-ending quest to improve this place by listening to feedback from the B&B, we are taking a unique tack with product posts, choosing to focus on items we have actually used or purchased with our own income. After all, if we’re giving you the truth about cars, we ought to give you the truth about car accessories.
While our Stuff We Use series of posts generally talks about gear for DIYers, this one is going the extra mile to add a lesson in word origins on top of some tool recommendations for your garage.
Numerous trademarked brand names have entered the lexicon as a common label for a particular item – even though that word may not technically be its actual name. Kleenex is a great example of a word we use in reference to a generic item even though that word belongs to a company. Same goes for ice resurfacers (Zamboni) and jet tubs (Jacuzzi). There is a great deal of this wordplay happening in the garage as well, with those slip-joint pliers commonly called channel locks? That’s actually a brand name.
Which brings us to our subject: locking pliers. Many people, including your author, simply refer to them as vise grips, even though the name Vise Grip is actually a term trademarked by the Irwin tool company. All the same, there must be immense satisfaction in corporate corner offices when one’s product is so ubiquitous that its very name is used generically for all variations thereof – even ones produced by a competitor.
In this case, it helps that the name is apt and it does exactly what it says on the package. These locking pliers are able to hold on to an item with vise-like grip without the user having to apply constant pressure to the tool’s handle as they would with a regular set of pliers. For anyone not in the know or just getting started on their DIY journey, one of the handles on a set of locking pliers contains the mechanism for locking the thing in place; the other handle has a small thumb screw which determines how far the plier jaw will stay open whilst locked.
Pro tip: that adjustment screw is likely to fail on cheap no-name locking pliers. Spend the money and select a good brand name. Speaking of selection, there is generally one of three types of jaws on the business end of locking pliers. Most common are curved jaws, perfect for grabbing onto the head of a fastener or gripping tightly onto a round surface like a metal pipe or the window winding mechanism of an old Chevy Lumina.
Also available are straight jaws, a style which is much better for pinching off the brake line on a 1989 Crown Victoria in order to restore some semblance of stopping power, a purpose for which locking pliers should never be used. A third type of jaw is of the needlenosed variety, perfect for squirreling into tight spaces and making sure whatever it is you wish immobile doesn’t move a micron.
It is increasingly common to find some pairs of locking pliers with a padded grip on one or both of their handles, a development which is fine so long as the padding is of good quality and won’t disintegrate into dust after a few uses. Properly applied and retained, padding can help produce extra leverage which could be just the amount need to finally finish a job – like standing in for a long lost window winder handle.
But definitely not pinching off brake lines. You use a well-placed roofing nail for that, right?
As planned, this series of posts will continue to focus on items we’ve actually used and bought with our own money. We hope you found this reprise helpful.
[Images: Anze Furlan, Shutterstock.com; ag1100, Shutterstock.com; lot photographer, Shutterstock.com]
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