New type of wrench

[Arthur]

Anybody tried these?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

[Doctor Evil]

This man has clearly never touched a piece of pipe in his life.

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[Andy Dingley]

Shopper one will have a soft nut that chews up from acting as a pivot and becomes hard to turn for adjustment.

The question really is whether a pair of "mangling pliers" like this, with gripper teeth rather than flat jaws, really needs to have accurate size adjustment. A simple Footprint wrench has either a single pivot position or a handful of discrete positions and they just let the taper in the jaws bridge the rest of the gap.

Personally I like Blue Point (cheap Snap-On's) water pump pliers. Well made and a good price, like a lot of Snap-On stuff is, if only you bother to read the price lists to find the bargains (their Allen key sets are good too)

[BigWallop]

many years.

Why Footprints? I hear you ask. Well when you lay them down and press them into damp sand, they leave an impression like a foot print. Try it, you'll see. :-)

[Arthur]

If they leave a footprint impression in the mother-in-laws skull I might just 'get away with it' :)

Arthur

[Arthur]

I've been using a conventional plumbers wrench as a bracer/holder while I tighten the nuts. But I find them a pain in the arse to choose the right adjustment for the different widths. I suppose experienced plumbers can do it with a flick of the wrist. The fuggin show offs :)

Arthur

[Doctor Evil]

Footprints are for small bore iron pipes. They are very good at what they are intended for, which is gripping the pipe. They are not for nuts and the likes.

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[:::Jerry::::]

Agreed, but having a smaller jaw thickness they can be used in places were the deeper Stillson type wrench will not fit.

[Nick Atty]

I've got a 3' (approx) Stillson - who needs scaffolding pole?

Ok - we actually got it for the distance the jaws open - it's perfect for the nut on the stern gland on our canal boat, which must be over 3" diameter. You don't really need much leverage.

It's ancient, slightly rusty, and cost a few quid from a market stall.

[Doctor Evil]

Another one who hasn't a clue.

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[Dave Plowman (News)]

You use a wrench on pipe? Is this the same sort of thing as cutting plastic pipe with a hacksaw?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I use waterpump pliers for this.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

So you still use iron barrel? Well, at least your hacksaw is some use there...

[John Stumbles]

As someone else said footprint-pattern are narrower. They also let you get a bit of a grip on the pipe by squeezing the handles whereas Stillsons only tighten as you turn them, so they can fall off before they've got a good grip. However I think there's an inherent weakness in the design of the Stillson pattern: I nearly wrecked one (admittedly a cheap clone) trying to give it some extra welly with a bit of scaffold pole, and the sort of square collar bit started to split where the pivot pin goes through it.

I think the ones like this

(also known as Stillson Expert in the Toolstation cat) are inherently better from this pov. Best of all IMO are the much lighter alloy version that ToolStation do as p/n 82687 etc.

Incidentally I notice TS do a thumbturn footprint-pattern wrench as well (p/n 53447 etc), a lot cheaper than plumbworld's (but maybe made of cheese)

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Extending a footprint with scaffold pole would have had a better result?

Cheap Stillsons are usually a waste of space. The jaws ain't hard enough, and as you say the pivot pin may break. So you use a decent quality larger pair instead of the scaffold pole.

[Doctor Evil]

Yes, for you that is what you do. You us footprints on plastic pipe. Please do.

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[Doctor Evil]

Iron barrel? What are you babbling about? Don't answer, please do not.

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[:::Jerry::::]

Well, I'm no IMM and I have used wrenches on steel / iron pipe, where one is threaded into another - how else are you going to tighten undo an inline coupler for example ?

[:::Jerry::::]

Your the one without clue, considering that you are jumping in and criticising when you don't even know why or where I was using them.