I haven’t heard about any new Crescent Tool products in a long time, so I dug around to see if I missed anything.
There’s nothing new, but I did find some YouTube videos with instructions on how to demonstrate the competitive advantages of Crescent hand tools.
Okay, so first you gather your tools. That part’s straightforward.
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The Channellock straight-jaw Speed Grip pliers is the “preferred competitor product.” Interesting.
Then you grab Crescent Auto-Bite pliers with V-jaw profile.
After showing how well the Crescent pliers work, you show how bad the competitive product is at grabbing a custom-made demo jig with stepped grooves.
The competing product will need to be readjusted to fit a different size.
Repeat on additional grooves in the custom pliers testing jig to emphasize that point.
Got it.
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Wait.
I generally don’t like comparative testing demonstrations by any brand.
But why would Crescent demo the USA-made Channellock straight-jaw pliers against their own V-jaw pliers? Channellock ALSO has V-jaw pliers that would make for an apples-to-apples comparison.
The Crescent Auto-Bite pliers are pretty good, which makes this comparison especially disappointing.
I consider Crescent’s Auto-Bite pliers to be a mash-up between standard tongue and groove pliers and Knipex Cobra pliers. You can get the equivalent Gearwrench Pitbull pliers for a little less ($20 at Amazon), and I prefer the Gearwrench color scheme as well. (Both brands are owned by Apex Tool Group.)
I tend to not like competitive demos, and even more so when they’re not as fair as possible. Comparing v-jaw adjusting pliers to straight jaw adjusting pliers is not fair.
In another demo how-to video, Crescent highlights poorer pipe gripping of Channellock straight jaw pliers. Competing Channellock v-jaw pliers would have been more appropriate there too, as straight-jaw pliers often do slip on pipes.
I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt and consider this unintentional.
This is a good example of why I don’t like competitive demos at media events, trade shows, or elsewhere.
Here’s the video, titled “Crescent Auto-Bite Tongue & Groove Pliers Demo Instructions”:
MM
Straight vs. V-jaws is absolutely not a fair comparison, especially when the “competitor’s product” is available in a V-jaw model which would have made for a much more direct comparison. This feels flat-out dishonest.
In my opinion competitive demos can be trustworthy but the tools being compared need to be apples to apples, and also there must be a range of trials done in the comparison, not just one particular thing which might have been cherry-picked to show off one model’s particular strengths. A head-to-head of water pump pliers? Great: The round aluminum comparison is good for a start, but lets also check how they handle common sizes of pipe and their fittings. And not just aluminum where the teeth can easily bite, let’s see some harder materials tested too. Will the teeth bite a grade 8 bolt? Let’s look at different shapes too, like square you might find on pipe plugs as well as hex fasteners and fittings. How much force is required at the handles to grip various objects? Now with a range of data, and actual numbers to compare, we might actually learn something useful.
But when the “demo” focuses on just one thing that honestly feels cherrypicked? No, that’s not trustworthy, that’s a marketing turn-off.
criketzchirping
Right. If I was shopping for pliers with no previous knowledge of brand/quality and saw this video, it would do exactly the opposite of the videos intention and send me looking somewhere else.
Jared
Yep I agree. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with pliers would easily spot how the test was designed to achieve its results.
Instead of making those pliers look good, I would assume they must suck – the brand had to manipulate the test parameters so the problems wouldn’t be obvious.
ITCD
And pick a preferred competitor to face off against. Why, don’t wanna square up against Knipex?
Blocky
Stuart, would you consider running your own test based on their test-running instructions?
Stuart
For what purpose?
Blocky
Well, for one, to demonstrate what a more variable-controlled ‘apples to apples’ test would look like. But to test any hypothesis around these tools, if you happen to have them both on hand.
I know you have some social media presence, and a casual side by side with your observations might be fun.
Crescent certainly isn’t pulling any punches naming channellock, and now the ball’s in their court so to speak.
But you might find your own reasons if it compels you.
I only own the gearwrench version.
Stuart
Objective head to head comparisons can be difficult. I can show you 10 different ways why one brand might be better than other. Ensuring it’s absolutely fair is always difficult.
I wouldn’t go with either of these. Knipex Cobra would be my first choice at premium pricing, and Irwin GrooveLock as the value choice.
eddie sky
The one on the left is like an adjustable wrench as it has flat jaws. The V one is more like adjustable pliers. That ad just says stupid marketing.
(looks at my Knipex collection.. “no babies! You have nothing to worry about! Daddy isn’t ever replacing all y’all”)
Jared
Is this video intended for consumers? It seems like the instructions could be for trade-show demonstrators, or something like that.
E.g. I don’t have a “Smart Pliers for Smart Hands demo unit”. I doubt that’s something I can buy for my own at-home testing either.
It’s just silly as an actual competitive product demonstration – I agree with MM about that. Clearly Crescent designed the “demo unit” so it would make their product look better – e.g. “aren’t slim jaw, auto-adjusting, V-jaw pliers great!” However, change the job and it might just highlight why pliers come in a variety of styles.
Jared
There are other aspects that make me suspicious that consumers aren’t the intended audience too. E.g. “call this out!” when the plier jaws don’t fit seems like instructions for the demonstrator to announce to his audience.
OR even selecting the straight-jaw Channellocks as the “preferred competitor product”. Could it be that Crescent is telling a product demonstrator which product to use to make sure the test makes the Crescent pliers look good?
MM
I’m sure you’re right and it’s meant for reps, trade-show demonstrators, or perhaps employees of stores that sell those tools.
Stuart
I assume it’s for sales reps for trade show demos or similar.
BigTimeTommy
Obviously an intentionally bad demo that put the competitor at a disadvantage. I’d be interested to see how the project farm guy would test these. He hasn’t tested water pump pliers yet afaik.
Jason
I watch Project Farm every week, I think he does as fair of a job as possible testing different brands and products. If I’m in the market for something I first check his channel to see what his testing has shown. Then I make my purchase. Sometimes they are off brands I’ve never heard of but may be made by the same factory. I’m an auto technician and own plenty of tools over 25 years. I don’t care about brand loyalty any longer, I care about how they work. This is an unfair test to be shown to people who may not no the difference.
MM
Project Farm’s tests are often–dare I say usually–pretty good. And I like the fact that he is not sponsored and buys everything used for all the tests. But from time to time the testing method is terrible, making the comparison entirely broken. For example, the “best hex keys” video. You can learn a lot from his testing, but I always try and keep a critical eye in the back of my mind.
Jared
That’s a good caveat to mention. I consider his tests good data points, but sometimes it’s best to draw your own conclusions.
E.g. he often tests to failure as a means of assessing durability. I understand why – it would take unreasonably long to conduct fatigue testing instead.
However, do you care if your side cutters can cut a hardened hex key? Even if they survive, the force required is well beyond what you can produce with your hand.
Brian M
Intentional bad demos like this just make me think they couldn’t win a real comparison…but this is also the same company that released the vortex bit holder and tried to claim it didn’t effect power when it’s a one-setting torsion “clutch.”
ITCD
And they gave out a bunch for free. Mine took so long to show up I forgot I even signed up for one lol. Honestly never tried it even, it’s stupidly bulky… I just like free stuff. And it came with a sticker.
Jim Felt
I’ll just offer the casual observation “how embarrassing” for them.
Clientgraphics
I read and view the demo to be geared more towards attempting to showcase the automatic adjustment rather than the jaws and if they have a v notch design or not. So when compared to a standard straight jaw tongue and groove pliers the Crescent’s Auto-Bite should appear to be a magical time saving wonder and should you be attempting to do this on a round surface it helps to have the v notch which is included on the Crescent tool we are demonstrating.
So not thinking about the jaw (flat or v notch) does Channellock offer an auto adjust plier in its current product offering or is it just a speed adjust with a push of a button to find the best grove?
Aaron SD
So a better comparison would be to Crescent’s straight pliers and use this to upsell the new design.
Clientgraphics
They 100% should have used their own Crescent branded straight jaw pliers. But the other marketing genius said we can’t do that because it would make the Crescent straight jaw pliers look bad and we still want to make and sell some of those in the future….
We need to pick one of the most popular and easily identifiable brands and use that as competition. We don’t actually care who or what it is or how it’s demonstrated we just need to ensure we focus on these points and that the Crescent’s Auto-Bite is clearly the winner.
I’ll be honest, it’s a terrible demonstration and bad comparison. I’ll probably never buy this product even if it was on final markdown at $3.99 I do own a set of Craftsman Professional Robogrip pliers that do nearly the same thing and rarely use them.
Nathan
Aren’t the pliers in the step one picture gear wrench auto adjust pliers. Looks like mine
ITCD
Pretty much. There’s lots of crossover among Apex brands. Crescent X2 pliers are also Sata pliers and I think GW has them as well.
Hari
Knipex pliers from WERA is what you want. Can’t believe they have not been part of the comparison… oh wait… they would have blown all others out of the water.
Stuart
Knipex and Wera are two separate companies…
That said, I’ve argued with other tool brands about their “preferred competitor” picks, and have been told that they often select the industry standard choice.
In an adjustable wrench comparison, Brand X might compare theirs against Crescent, even though it’s not the best.
ITCD
Is the Speedgrip the industry standard choice though? I feel like classic Channy and Knipex Cobra are the big two that get tradesmen swearing by them.
Joe E.
I’m surprised that SBD hasn’t purchased the Crescent brand and added it to their already enormous and confusing portfolio of once great tool brands.
Apex sure hasn’t figured out what to really do with it. Other than the few uninteresting tools I see collecting dust at Tractor Supply, Crescent is pretty much irrelevant these days.
Stuart
I think Great Star would be much more likely to purchase Apex Tool Group.
ITCD
So far they’ve piled most of their trades-related brands under it. Seems like Crescent is for tradesmen, Gearwrench is for automotive, and Sata is the value line.
They’ve made other interesting choices. For example they own Master Power and Cleco (these get crossbranded too, or MP got absorbed into Cleco, we used to get MP at work and now we get Cleco and they kept the part number and everything, it’s now just orange and has Cleco embossed on it) which makes industrial air tools but didn’t keep Armstrong around to cover the industrial hand tools segment. Could have possibly had a 1-2-3 of Armstrong hand tools, Cleco air tools, and Apex bits for those air tools and outfitted whole shops.
s
self-adjusting ‘pliers’ have never worked for me.
despite the demo concept, the reality is that i’ve really never needed pliers to grip 4 differently-sized materials in a row, but almost always need to grip the same-sized material 4 or more times.
self adjusting models always end up shifting on me on repeated gripping action, resulting in swear jar donations after i need to repeat the self-adjustment procedure to re-acclimate the ‘automatic gripping’ to the size i needed it to hold from the first use.
overall, self-adjusting tools tend to just get in the way on jobsites more than they ever seem to help make any process move faster…
MM
I have a pair of the old Craftsman RoboGrips in my toolbox, the smaller 7″ size. They are not perfect but I do like them and I’ve replaced them twice after wearing out one pair and another having grown legs and walked off. I rarely use them these days, 99% of the time I need that kind of tool I’m grabbing either Cobras or a Pliers Wrench as now I own several sizes of each. But there are a handful of situations where I like the Robogrips. They can be handy in tight places where you can’t properly adjust pliers that require it, or for oddly shaped parts where the grip size changes as the part is turned. Also, the fact that they are laminated means that they jaws have improved grip in the sideways direction. It’s not as agressive as the teeth on Twingrips, Engineer/Vampliers, or similar but it is better than most water pump pliers. They are not my #1 go-tos, but I like them enough to keep a pair around.
DRT42
Ha! Me, too.
Chip
My 88 yr old mother loves her self-adjusting Knipex for removing lids under 2 inches in the kitchen.
For larger manual oil pump pliers work for jars.
“Crescent” wrenches have been made irrelevant by the plierswrench…except as a caliper on occasion,and bending metal.
Same with channellocks.
Competition is great,but after hitting age 45 I want the best tool to avoid aggravation.
ITCD
I disagree about Crescent-style adjustables being made irrelevant. The PliersWrench has something of a size issue at times, and does not tackle a fastener straight on which sometimes that’s the only way to reach them, and cannot be operated with one hand. The Eifel Plierench and Winner wrench and other forerunners to the Knipex design to this day haven’t managed to kill off the classic adjustable.
Michael F
This just reminds me of the terrible Cutco knife demonstration I had the misfortune of seeing recently. They have you attempt to cut “boot leather” with a competitor’s knife and then the Cutco knife. One little detail I immediately noticed is that they hold the leather slack when cutting with the competing knife and pull it extremely taut when cutting with the Cutco knife. Unsurprisingly, the taut leather cuts much faster. A dishonest demo for a dishonest product.
MM
The other misleading thing about Cutco demos is that they work with any serrated edge, not just their particular design. Those as-seen-on-TV “Ginsu 2000” and similar sorts of knives will do just as well in the Cutco trials. Cutco is a master class in using marketing to sell a mediocre product.
James
Apologies for the novel…
I sold Cutco knives while in school for one summer in 2001….sold a lot of knives, enough to make $20k in 3 months and win a trip to the West Edmonton Mall. The pitch was a little gimmicky, and I would add tomatoes (and other food) to my backpack every morning for a more “authentic” pitch and to give the customer the opportunity to go head to head with their existing knives…
I still have most of the knives from my demo kit, and they are in excellent shape after going through the dishwasher probably 2-3000 times in the case of the paring knives and tomato knife.
This Christmas, rather than buying gifts for each other, my wife and I called Cutco and got a local rep to come to the house. We supplemented my demo knives to make a full “Homemaker” set, and gifted our other block of Henckels to a relative. They’re amazing knives and it’s nice to fill in the blanks with, in particular, the chef’s knife and a full set of steak knives.
The issue, as noted above, with dishonest marketing tactics, is you hurt your own brand. If the Cutco demo held the leather taut for the competition, Cutco would still probably be better, but not as dramatically so. If the Crescent comparison was against standard v-grip Channellocks, they could effectively demonstrate the advantage of the self-adjustment feature, but wouldn’t dishonestly claim a better “bite”.
That said, I’m a water system technician so I do plumbing every day in various materials, all 2” diameter or less. I use a combo of Knipex Plier-Wrenches, Cobras and standard v-grip Channellocks. For fittings with wrench flats, plier-wrenches. For repetitive tasks or things needing bite, Cobras. And for one-off tasks, I still reach for the Channellocks because after 20 years of daily use I’m able to adjust them with one hand in a way that cannot be done with Knipex. And of course on occasion the pipe wrenches have to come out but that’s an extra trip to the truck…
I have tried some of these self adjustable things but have never tried one that worked as well as I would like to actually buy.
Wayne R.
Those Cutco “Table Knives” are amazing in steak though…
Daniel L
Advertising is closely tied to propoganda.
Truth isn’t important for a successful ad campaign. All that is important is stimulating an emotional response:
*gasp!* the channel lock really *isnt* good at gripping!
They’re making the bet that most folks won’t look too closely: they won’t analyze jaw shape, the shape of the object they’re attempting to grip.
This is, strangely enough, situated to trick all those who might care about which set is better but aren’t quite mechanically-minded enough to see through the misdirection. Maybe new mechanics, hoping to build brand loyalty? Formative experiences can carry through quite a while.
The risk here is, essentially, that folks who do see through the misdirection will be turned off by the dishonesty of this display. But perhaps they take heart in knowing that to explain the shortcomings of this display would take a certain level of experience and thought, and we’re all just walking wallets anyways.
Hmmm.