How I Work Pliers into My EDC

hey guys this is justin back with an engineer's perspective and uh today i'm talking about how i integrate pliers into my edc i've kind of done um a few probably videos on all of these things kind of talking about this but i wanted to do a more concise one place approach to address pliers so i want to talk about players specifically because i think these are kind of the main tools that i look for and i think most people probably look for that they want to carry on them when they're looking to start carrying stuff on them so knife file scissors pliers sawn screw screwdriving capability are probably the main main ones with the one-handed ones being probably those ones are the ones we like the most screwdrivers don't always have to be one-handed but it's nice but for the most part it's easy to get a knife everything's got knives we've got pocket knives so it's easy to get a good knife scissors are fairly easy to get with all the different victorinox options and leatherman options however whatever incarnation you like files are pretty easy to get once again with the small victorinoxes and with stuff like that the saw not as easy to get a saw not terribly difficult if you get some victorinox's with them that's a good way to get a saw into your edc or of course leathermans that's another good way to get saws but they're not very important for me so i'm not focusing on that and then screw driving there's levels of that with everything so it's easy to get the capability of a screwdriver whether it be good or bad but pliers though this one can be tricky to get good pliers that are lightweight a little bit so that's what i'm gonna focus on is how do i work pliers into my edc all right so i laid out all of my options here that i that i go to regularly and i guess let's start at the easiest and work our way back so if i know i'm doing heavy duty work then it's really easy to have the something like the surge to get some big beefy pliers than to carry like nip x of some variety be it the 180 millimeter plier wrenches or something like that but this is really heavy duty not really my everyday so this is like the obvious answer so that's why it's not no duh so i'm not going to talk too much about that and then the step down but still high up on this level is if you're willing to carry you know a charge or a wave so the charge is my go-to right now um then that's also kind of a noda thing like there you go if you're willing and able to carry something this thick and bulky then boom you got pliers so that's easy this is easy and then you i kind of brought the clip out here because you do have some options so you can kind of do the like full work hardcore here i'll stick something in here um setup you know like this where it's like wow look at that guy you know he's ready for a fight um but if you want it to look maybe a little bit nicer then you can go something like this with a leather sheath so this is to me more low-key than this is so this maybe makes you comfortable carrying this in certain environments and even a step down from that is you can even do the pocket clip i do have the black one that came with this guy but i don't have it out here so you know you can even do a pocket clip it's deep carry that goes all the way down in your pocket so that's an option so this is where it starts to get where you've got some flexibility i guess you can do that with a surge too all those things but it's still just like a lot for me to to pocket carry i don't like to do that so these are the obvious answers so this is when i start getting less obvious is more in this realm to where you get some nuance so i think the free really does a good job of this where if you're an office going guy and you want just a really great pair of pliers then this is something that slips into the pocket a lot nicer and it's got a pocket knife just right there good scissors right there this is a really great option to get pliers and the other major tools in there and then where it falls flat on the file it's easy to get good files and a small accompanying tool but this is a great way to do it where it falls flat for me is like i don't like to carry this tool every day because it has to get clipped in a pocket somewhere and my favorite place to clip it is where i like to clip my actual pocket knife so because i like to carry a dedicated pocket knife and not rely on this one it doesn't make this an everyday solution for me and it it you know this is like a special occasion where you know i want i want the heavy duty pliers but i don't want to do this sort of a thing and the skeletool falls right into that same category where i think you know they kind of fit the same bill and i just i can't carry the scallop tool every day because i i'd rather carry this where i like to carry this one and then at some point you just have so many pocket clips all over you that it just looks too tactical worky whatever ridiculous so so if you're willing to give up a pocket knife then and carry this style every day you're golden so this is this is the very obvious answer if you're willing to do that this is kind of the medium obvious answer of how to get good pliers into your life right there and now this is where the nuance really starts to get creative when you're trying to go lightweight and the two answers here are and more minimalist because you know a lot of the time i don't need really big pliers so this is just like the the micro pliers from leatherman a style ps right here um these can get a lot of little pliery tasks done snipping snipping some heavy duty wire and some like the metal straps you get on like crates and stuff is you can snip one side snip the other grab it and snap it so this will take care of that kind of a thing so this gets pliers into your life this is more of like an emergency set of pliers so the question is how do you get like good pliers but still be minimalist and so far my favorite answer to good pliers but minimalist are i'm just going to go around these guys and you know what i'm actually going to backtrack really quick i don't know if i talked about the sheaths you know because the problem with with these guys is you don't want to look like you're overkill in the office sometimes like i mean maybe do maybe you don't so this is like full bore working but let's say if you wanted to dress it up a little bit maybe you you know switch over to like a leather sheath and this to me really takes down the level of like wow look at that guy and a step further is the pocket clip as if you do that option down in here is it really makes it a lot more low-key like not so crazy but the pocket clip runs in the same problem that these tools have plus it's so much heavier and bulkier than these two so i'm not a big fan of the pocket clip carry on these personally but that's a way you can work pliers in if you don't want to do this as you can try these options maybe or here's even one that's less tactical than this one it's a little slimmer but anyways moving back onwards to so far what's kind of my preferred way of getting some low-key pliers when i don't need the full deal so there's these guys but i really prefer this sort of a thing so i'm still testing this victorinox victorinox mechanic which you can't get anymore so you know this might not be that useful to you guys but you can try to find some of these on the secondary market for not crazy prices and they're very well made they've got this special pivot here that's really nice and tight you've got the needle nose section up front the normal grabber section back here and you've got this tiny little wire cutter back here and then you've actually got a crimper back there i haven't tried the crimper i have used the wire cutter it's a little cumbersome and small but it does work and i've used these pliers on a few things they're great for really fine tasks but for bigger things i've only grabbed on to uh like those little chain links with the screws on them that's probably the heaviest duty thing i've used these for and even then that was kind of a stretch like here's this guy that i've featured in some videos it's got it'll grab on to that quarter inch okay um but it's it's not heavy-duty i'd say it's it's better than this micro one like hands down i'll just give you a little comparison here wide open it definitely is better than these guys except for the wire cutting but this has been pretty nice drop this down in the pocket you've got some good options here and you can do that to get you going but the problem with this guy's one it's not available and two is that i love my compact and this displaces it and i don't prefer this over the compact so that brings us to the nip x which so far has been my favorite way to work in some like heavier duty pliers and i've got the 125 cobras here and this is the 100 millimeter xs cobras here still using these ones to decide how i feel about them but the initial impressions are good and that there is not a lot to report other than that they work like a pair of nippex cobras you know which is to say good um these are really awesome and small and lightweight they did a great job of making these edc friendly and i just slipped this right in my back pocket and same with these ones and they bury down in there pretty good they do have a tendency the small ones more than the large ones that if they're in my back pocket is to flip sideways and this this is the number one thing i'll note here is this guy when it flips sideways which doesn't happen as much because the grippy handles kind of hold in place a little better you can definitely tell when you sit on it you're like oh and you just gotta flip it back up in your pocket whereas these guys however they're so thin and like it doesn't the handles don't look that different so i don't know if it's the plier head itself that's more of the issue but if these flip sideways in your pocket i don't even notice so i can sit my butt on these things all day and i don't even notice and i'm talking on like you know a cushiony chair but but even like non-cushiony surfaces like a tile floor or the carpet or whatever i haven't had problems with sitting on these so so that's a big advantage you don't have to worry about these flopping around and flipping over sideways because it doesn't really matter and you can still extract them out of your back pocket i am going to try to front pocket carry these for a while to see what that does for me i know i'm not going to like it because they have to go in the pocket that my keys are going to go into and as it warms up here it's going my keys are going to end up back in my left pocket with this guy because when the winter they go in my coat pocket so it's not a problem but but yeah these so far have been probably the best option over these just because of their extra thinness when they fall sideways that that they're more comfortable but these are kind of the the more creative options when you're really trying to figure out what works for you you know i've talked about if you're going lightweight but want a good pair of pliers and the skeletool if you want better pliers and you go up to that and then i think you know who you are if you're already considering carrying these guys yeah but these are the options i oops assess when i'm trying to look for a pair of pliers to work in you know i honestly usually i'm just carrying this because i'm working from home so i can do that without feeling like a weirdo but in a fancier environment i'm usually doing one of these two options and i've been experimenting with this but i just miss my compact too dang much when i use this so this is more of my go-to here but once again this guy they're just not like that great they do get the job done in terms of pliers but this is some serious playing player action here so that's it that's how i work pliers into my life my everyday carry so i hope that was informational enjoyable and all those good things so i appreciate you watching have a good one guys bye

Channel: Engineer’s Perspective

Views: 11,399

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Id: gbIiCq8ND6Y

Length: 14min 48sec (888 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 27 2021