Hello,
I see there are two types of mole grips: ones with straight jaws, and ones with curved jaws. Which is most useful or should you always have a pair of both in your toolbox? When do you use each type?
Thanks. Rob
There are masses of variants of the Mole 'locking vice grip' style tool with jaws of every conceiveable shape. The straight parallel jaw variety, not suprisingly perhaps, would be used to grip things that have parallel sides, like a large nut or a square bar. Whereas the curved jaw style, again not suprisingly, would be used to grip curved things like a piece of iron gas barrel or a thick rod.
Don't confine yourself t!o those two shapes - Google Mole welding pliers
AWEM
My mole grips have a curved, toothed part nearest the pivot and with flats at the opening end. Hence they can be used for gripping rounded objects _and_ attaching to flats, to use as a clamp, as well. I'd suggest two pairs like that: one big and one small.
The ones that say "Made by Mole" on the side, secondly the ones from Vise-Grip.
My cheap Chinese ones all met a firey death one day when I welded the damned lot of them into a block of scrap steel. I was working on a large welding project and their poor locking and resultant tendency to fly off when I breathed on them was driving me spare. Nowadays I just buy the good ones.
I had a cheap Chinese pair, and was using the usual trick of closing them, winding them shut on the nut/pipe/whatever, opening them, doing the screw up a bit more, then heaving them shut again....
I did the screw up quite a bit as they were slipping...applied severe hand pressure to close them, and the handles just folded in half.
Yes, get *real* Mole ones...
I've probably got upwards of a dozen different types. Different sizes too. If you include welding clamps. The smallest with long thin jaws probably gets used the most. For things like stopping an awkwardly positioned bolt head turning while you undo the nut. And light duty clamping of things being glued, etc.
Agreed. BTW the term "Mole Grips" is only a colloquialism. They were always known as a "Mole Wrench".
Both. You can never have too many tools :-)
The straight jaw types are useful for a variety of jobs, I have a 'mini' size pair about 6" overall length which are invaluable. For plumbing jobs the larger curved jaw types work really well.
And since a 'wrench' is a spanner, that's the last thing you should use them for.
Interesting combination of both
I somehow acquired a pair which have one flat and one _convex_ toothed face, as: )|. Apart from the unlikely need to grip plano-concave objects, can anyone tell me what they are intended to be used for?
Chris
Not quite. The straight jaws open and close about a pivot so are only parallel at one particular setting, about 15mm on mine.
The exception to this is the Stanley "Locking Adjustable Wrench" already mentioned by TMH .
If they have the correct curve then the tangent where they meet and object in the jaws will be parallel to the straight jaw. This gives a pure clamping force with no force to push the job out of the jaws.
Absolutely not so Mike with genuine Moles, the jaw stays parallel - that's the whole point of them.
AWEM
Absolutely!
I have a fair collection of genuine and Chinese. Sure, the latter are rougher but they are cheap. They work for lots of jobs.
I've only got one old genuine Mole grip - and I'd be bereft without it ! (My others are all cheap imitations and all distort the first time you try to grip anything really tight.) My Mole's jaws do taper a bit, so they can grip quite thin things right at the tips of the jaws, but not further back. This I have found to be a useful feature, that is not shared on the imitations.
S
I have a pair of early 60s Mole "Self-grip wrench". The moving jaw pivots around a single point and the straight jaws are only parallel when the opening is 7/8".
Not on my vintage genuine Mole wrench they don't -
Likewise. In fact I've never seen a parallel-jawed version of either genuine Mole or "Chinese-copy" wrenches.
There's no necessity for parallel jaws. If the object to be gripped has parallel faces a "crescent wrench" or a simple adjustable (or fixed) spanner is appropriate - a "Mole Wrench" is really a rather crude tool to grab hold of round or randomly-shaped objects.
Thanks. It looks like I should buy the Irwin vise-grip ones then. Are the Mole brand available? I've not seen them around (but haven't looked too hard yet).
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.