September 17, 2010

Channellock 369 High Leverage Linesman Pliers - Review

Some tools are so complex and feature-laden that it takes an advanced degree in engineering just to wrap the head around it. Other times though, the tool is simple. Very simple. As in "cave-painting simple." Enter Channellock's 369 Linesman Pliers.

At $20 you could find cheaper, but finding better is another story. This tool is a very basic two pieces of metal with a hinge pin. While they're meant for cutting, wrapping, and bending wire and cable, we see linesman pliers as one of those, 'do whatever it is you need them to do' kind of tools. Who knows what kind of trouble you're likely to get into with a pair in your tool bag.

To directly address the durability of this tool, we horrified the neighbors by standing in our driveway and throwing the tool as hard as we could at the ground (nose first) about 30 times. We got a little surface marring (and a little laughing and pointing from the neighborhood kids), but no changes to the functionality.

And the functionality is great. On this model, Channellock shifted the rivet closer to the cutting edge (detailed nicely over at ToolGuyd), which allows for some pretty strong cutting power. We had no problem snapping drywall screw after drywall screw after drywall screw. There's no doubt that this is a rugged tool.

So yeah, they're it's not the cheapest ones out there, but if you don't lose them, they'll be around forever.

At Amazon.com