10 Tools You Need In Your Tool Bag

We all know there are countless tools that we can use to make our job easier.  Those tools can make a difficult job a breeze, a half hour job take ten minutes.  For the next 10 days I will be publishing what I believe to be ten of the most handy tools you could have in your tool box.  Some of these are very basic, others may be a little more out there.  Some are just a couple bucks, others maybe out of reach for the average maintenance technician.  If you can't afford to go out and buy one ask your company and explain the reason the tool would be so handy, direct them to this blog if it helps!  I am going to start with the best set of pliers I have ever used.

 KNIPEX COBRA PLIERS

  I learned about these pliers from my father-in-law who is a well driller.  He said he hardly ever has to use a pipe wrench anymore.  He even put some on his rigs for his guys to use.  After watching him use them and be able to store them in his back pocket while he worked around the house I decided I had to try them out.  I will NEVER buy another type of "groove lock" pliers again, even Channel Locks.  I put groove lock in parenthesis because they are not really groove lock, technically I should call them water pump pliers but people might not know what I'm talking about.  They adjust by a pressing in a button on the side of the pliers.  This is one of my favorite features of the pliers because once you get them into position they don't slip out and yet the button works so smoothly you can adjust with one hand with some practice.  These pliers come in 5 different sizes from a 1" capacity to 4-1/2" capacity.  I have a 6" pair that goes up to 1-1/4" capacity and a 10" pair that goes up to 2".  The pliers are super light weight and yet stonger than any other pliers I have used.  I can stick the 6" pair in my back pocket and not even know its there and yet put all my body weight on them and they won't break.  The  jaws are designed to compliment the push button feature and lock down onto whatever you are working on and the no-slip grip on the handles keep your hands from slipping also.  I have never had these pliers slip when used on the proper size material and my father-in-law was right when he said you wouldn't have to use pipe wrenches anymore.  I have taken off original 3/4" unions on the 40 year old pipes on my property with my 6" pliers.  Although they are not quite the right size they do work.  These pliers are well worth the money and can be bought from Lowes, Sears, and a variety of other sources.  This is the link to the Knipex website.

I hope you give these pliers a try as I know you won't disappointed!  Tomorrow I will be discussing multimeters so I hope to see you back.