The pliers are an essential tool in any shop or home. They have several functions, and the most common is to hold, cut, fold or rotate elements by force. It is said that its origin comes from the manipulation of iron in the forcing process.
There are up to 20 different types of pliers on the market. In this post, we will review the most common pliers. All of them have in common the composition or parts of the pliers, formed by the head, with jaws or tweezers, the common area, and handle.
Types of pliers
- Universal pliers
- Cutting Pliers
- Flat Mouth Pliers
- Adjustable Pliers
- Wire Stripping Pliers
- Jaw Pliers
- Pliers for Washers
- Universal pliers
- Titanium tweezers or pliers
The pliers are the most common model and possibly have in your toolbox. You can use them to tighten and loosen mechanical joints, stretch and bend parts, and cut or strip wires and cables. Its clamps are sturdy and short. These have a cutting position and a serrated mouth. The jagged mouth serves to hold circular pieces. However, you shouldn’t use it to fix nuts because you could round their hexagonal shape.
Cutting pliers
Unlike the universal ones, the cutting pliers do not have the clamping function. They are generally used to cut and strip electrical cables. They are not to be confused with pliers, which are used to hold an object tight.
Flat nose pliers
The flat pliers have also known as precision tweezers. They are characterized by having the pliers more elongated than the universal pliers and in a flat shape. They are used to hold small parts or to reach hard-to-reach corners. In addition, they are often used to handle cables and wires, but unlike the previous two, flat nose pliers do not carry the cutting function.
Adjustable pliers
The adjustable pliers have a movable screw in the movable joint used to adjust the maximum opening of the jaws. In this way, they allow you to manipulate pieces of different sizes without having several pliers.
Within the adjustable pliers, we find the extendable pliers that move the joint in various positions. They are used to tighten large screws or to hold irregular-shaped parts. They are often used in plumbing work and are also known as parrot nose pliers.
Another type of adjustable pliers is sheet metal pliers, which instead of several opening positions, have only two parts.
Wire stripping pliers
As the name suggests, wire stripping pliers strip the protective covering of electrical cables to manipulate the copper conductor. As the distance is regulated with a screw, they allow working with wires of different sections.
Jaw or pressure pliers
The locking pliers are used to hold pieces. Their main characteristic is that once they are locked, they do not require us to be constantly squeezing them so that they free our hands to perform other operations. Instead, by pressing the handles, we lock the pliers, and to unlock them, we have a lever. Thus, they are also known as jaw pliers.
Pliers for washers
The round-nose pliers or circlip pliers are distinguished from flat pliers because the tip is cylindrical. They are widely used in electricity (to bend and wind cables) and crafts (to create loops in wires or bend rings). Round nose pliers can also have a curved nose and help mount retaining rings or Seeger rings.
In addition to this classification of pliers that correspond to the most common tools, you can find other types of special pliers for specific uses, such as crimping pliers (used in electricity) or drilling pliers used to make holes.