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  • Author Author: neuromodulator
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Knipex pliers

neuromodulator

I recently received a nice package from E14:

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Of all these items my favorite items are the Knipex pliers. They are mostly cutters and so far I'm very happy with them as they appear to be very high quality and well built. Lets take a closer look at them.

 

These cutters have a longer handle, use a coiled spring and have an opening limiter mechanism. Cutting with them is effortless, these are the kind of pliers I would first chose to cut electronic component leads. The only difference between these 4 cutters is that gray ones have ESD protection, and that the bigger ones can cut through bigger diameters.
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Then we have the rest of the pliers with shorter curved handles:

 

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Here are some close-ups of their jaws:

 

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This one is really nice, it contains a "lead-catcher", which is a mechanism that keeps the cutted lead stuck until you open the grips:

 

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This one is interesting, the cutting piece is made of a different material, which I suspect is tungsten carbide. The hard cutting piece cut even piano strings (which are very hard):

 

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Of all the pliers these two are the only one that are not cutters, and are what I would use to bend wires:

 

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  • in reply to neuromodulator

    Not sure about diodes, but I have come to the conclusion that resistor legs are mostly made of some magnetic material, perhaps iron, rather than the copper I expected. This revelation happened because as part of my retirement I had planned to save all the wires I cut from resistors and so on, in a big jar, for the next 20 years and then go to the scrap man with many kilograms of copper. Sadly, this goal is no longer viable as I noticed they were sticking to magnets. Copper doesn't!

     

    Dubbie

  • in reply to knipex

    Thanks Kinpex, I wouldn't call it a review though, it was more like showing what I received and my impressions of the pliers.

    I have 2 question for you:
    What are the advantage/disadvantages of softer cutters compared to harder cutters?
    I've never payed attention to the material of electronic component leads, what are they usually made of? In one of your web-pages you stated that "diode leads" should be cut only with hard cutters, is there any rule of thumb on how to identify the hardness of the leads to know what cutter one could use?

  • in reply to dubbie

    I have a knock off of pair of your wire-strippers. Mine have ugly blue handles. The color is easy to find when left on the floor. They are great for preserving skin on your knuckles when stripping 14/2 electrical wires. Especially when the wires are sitting inside a junction box. Nothing like the a good pair of wire strippers to improve a day working with wire!

  • in reply to three-phase

    Donald,

     

    I still have my cutters that I purchased when I was 16 or 17 from a tool shop, when we still had such this. I have used them all my life, some 45 years. I cannot make out the makers name but it is also marked  W Germany LJ1. The cutting edge is still as good as the day they were purchased - although I make sure I only use them for cutting component legs. They're not Knipex, but still good.

     

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    I have some Knipex wire strippers (model 1211?), purchased with Project14 winners prize money and they are great.

     

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    Dubbie