I came across the pictured 20-piece pliers set over at Amazon. Its price is currently $92.80, which comes out to less than $5 per plier. Inexpensive pliers are not necessarily “cheap”, but at this price, I can’t imagine that the pliers will stand up to heavy duty use and abuse.
On one hand, you get 20 different plier styles at $5 apiece. But on the other hand, logic and experience dictates that they’re only built for low to medium duty tasks at best. If I were starting off trying to build up a tool assortment, I might actually give this set serious consideration.
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But at this point, I consider 5-8 higher quality pliers for the same $100 to be of greater value. Still, this set does offer a variety of styles and sizes at a great value, and might be a good gift idea for those with budding tool kits.
Thorsen 20-Piece Pliers Set via Amazon
Dan Richards
Lowest price I know of, $70 w/ free shiping at Costco: http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11283564
I was debating this tool kit for a long time myself, since I apparently have an appetite to fill my space with tools before I fill it with cabinetry. I’ve seen photo reviews of that Thorsen set before… but first I’d like to note that Northern Tool inappropriately labels these as Made in USA. They’re actually China-made. Not that China can’t make a good tool… but in the case of the photo review I saw (GJ, I believe) the quality looked spotty, with excess flashing and jaws that didn’t align properly for cutting amongst the issues. That’s not to say they haven’t tackled those issues, or that the problems are widespread, but it was enough to turn me away from Thorsen’s 20pc kit and their 4pc Facom-clone locking pliers.
ClarkM
Cheap pliers give my fingers the willies. Memories of sloppy slip joints resulting in pain would make me stay far away from them. Needle nose tips that don’t align or diagonals that dont quite meet at the edge are also disappointing. There isn’t even a reason to give such a low end product any consideration. They look like the $1.99 units on the big table near the parts store counter. Those are terrible. With Channelock’s good quality, fair pricing and expanded exposure in the marketplace, there is no reason for the average guy to blow his money on poor quality or over invest in high end pliers. Companies will soon be paying Chinese manufacturers for a good product and the quality issues will be as distant as the Japanese issues of the past. It will be interesting to see if Gearwrench offers a good plier in the future.