What's happening on social?
Module one: History and Safety
Module four: Specialist Electricians Tools
Module three: Core Electricians Tools
Module three: Core Electricians Tools
Pliers and Cutters.
Types of Pliers and Cutters
Circlips are mainly used to hold assemblies of components on to a shaft or in a recess which means that to remove them they have to be either expanded or squeezed.
This means that there are two sorts of circlip pliers; inside pliers for circlips in holes and outside pliers for circlips on shafts.
Circlip pliers
Circlip pliers (pronounced 'sir-clip') are a version of pliers specially designed to put in and remove circlips, which are found in a wide variety of equipment and machinery. Consequently they are generally regarded as an Engineer’s or Mechanic's tool.
This means that there are two sorts of circlip pliers; inside pliers for circlips in holes and outside pliers for circlips on shafts.
For lighter or occasional use C.K offers an adjustable circlip pliers set. This has a push button feature that changes the pliers so that they can be used on both internal and external circlips, without the need to change the heads.
The tips of the circlip pliers are important. They have to be slightly angled in on inside pliers and slightly angled out on outside pliers. This is so that they hold the circlip securely.
If they were straight the circlip would tend to ‘ping’ off; irritating and potentially dangerous.
For convenience and access in tight places, there are two form of circlip plier; straight and bent.
The sizes of circlips and the pliers to be used on them are commonly referred to as size codes in the German DIN standards. The following chart gives the DIN codes:
Plier size Circlip diameter Inside DIN Code Outside DIN Code
140mm fine point 3-10mm A0 J0
140mm 12-25mm A1 J1
180mm 19-60mm A2 J2
220mm 40-100mm A3 J3
300mm 85-140mm A4 J4