Wrenching Techniques -

Pliers or Wrench?

You should always turn a nut using a wrench. Using pliers for such a purpose is going to round out the edges of the nut, which will make it even harder for you to remove it later on. If it is absolutely necessary, you can hold the bolt using pliers but you must make sure that you are using a wrench to turn it.

Turning it Right

When you are using an adjustable type of wrench, you should pull the handle so that the stronger and fixed side of the jaw is the one that is applying the pressure in place of the weaker and adjustable side of the wrench. Before you begin to turn the wrench you should make sure that the nut is being tightly held in between the jaws of the wrench.

Padding the Jaws

If you are using a pair of pliers on a surface that is easily capable of becoming scratched like brass, chrome or plastic, then you should be sure to pad the jaws of the pliers. The way that you can do this is by wrapping them up using adhesive tape, or by covering them in the cut-off fingers of an old leather work glove, creating sleeves that you can put right over the top of each of the sides of the pliers. This will keep the jaws from marring the work surface.

Creating a Third Hand

You can make sure of long nose locking pliers as a third hand capable of gripping really small objects while you focus on other things such as assembling, soldering or clamping for example. You can easily convert an ordinary pair of pliers into a locking pair of pliers by simply wrapping a rubber band tightly over the closed handles. The rubber band is going to keep the jaws of the pliers clamped tightly closed while you focus on your work.

Working with Bolts -

Small Nuts

Positioning a small nut in a place that is tight is often going to involve a great deal of unnecessary fumbling. If you want to speed things up, then you should wrap a strip of double sided carpet tape on the end of your finger, then use the tape to pick the nut up, and to hold it in place on the end of the bolt. Now you can simply turn the bolt in order to secure the nut in place.

Hard to Reach Places

Threading a washer and a nut onto a bolt when you are dealing with a blind spot can be really awkward and difficult as a result. The job is going to go much faster and be much easier as well if you simply glue the washer together to the nut. Apply just a drop of glue from a hot glue stick gun where the nut and the washer meet, making sure that the threads are kept clear of glue. Once the glue has set, you simply have to thread the nut as normal.

Photo Credits: Julia Manzerova

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Categories:

Handy Man, Tools

Tags:

adhesive tape, bolt, bolts, double sided carpet tape, fingers, jaws, leather work, locking pliers, nuts, old leather, rubber band, work glove, work surface