Safety wire pliers

jnmeade

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Jim Meade
Which safety wire pliers? Reversible? Does it matter?
 
For casual use (change your oil once in a while, maybe a bit more) find the cheap ones at Spruce or similar. If you're planning on being an A&P, then buy the good reversible ones. Frankly, once you learn to safety wire, any pair of pliers work - it's just a lot more effort on your part.
 
I bought a cheap set once. I got what I paid for. They worked about one time and promptly fell apart. YRMV
 
I still do it by hand. I was Navy trained and we were forbidden to use pliers.

Old habits just never die.

22 years a navy mech, and 12 years a federal mech, never did it by hand except in mech fund P school. (Norma Ok)

While building the T-56, we used a roll of wire every 2 days.
 
Which safety wire pliers? Reversible? Does it matter?

cut 12 inches of #4 stainless tube, form a 3 inch crank with it, and drill a #40 hole thru it 1/4 inch back from the long end. it will work as good as any safety wire pliers you can buy.
 
22 years a navy mech, and 12 years a federal mech, never did it by hand except in mech fund P school. (Norma Ok)

They refused to let us use them in "A" school then when I got out to the squadron there were none to be found either.

Like everything else in the military I guess someone higher up had a beef with using them. :dunno:

(but remember, I was a "tweet" so maybe they just didn't trust us with them) :D
 
(but remember, I was a "tweet" so maybe they just didn't trust us with them) :D

Why doesn't that surprise me ?

We didn't trust the "Tweets" with any thing sharp, or with any thing that had two or moving parts.
 
I was a tweet - we had safety wire pliers in our tool boxes ... on the other hand, the E-2 had over a hundred WRAs all safety wired in the equipment compartment.
 
I still do it by hand. I was Navy trained and we were forbidden to use pliers.

Old habits just never die.

That must've been a while ago. I went through my A-school in '94 and they were handing out saftey wire pliers like candy. I still have a set that Uncle Sam 'gave' to me. :D
 
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