Chain Lock Grip Plier (18")

The advantages of a chain are worth setting out because they are not obvious until you need one. It conforms to any shape — round, square, hexagonal, irregular, damaged, or an odd casting with nothing parallel about it. Its capacity is set by the chain length rather than by a jaw opening, so one tool covers a very wide range of diameters. And it grips all the way around rather than at two points, so the load is spread and the tool does not crush or distort what it holds the way a jawed clamp can on thin-walled pipe.

Eighteen inches gives the leverage to actually turn what it grips, which matters because that is the main job: gripping and turning pipe, tube, cylinders, shafts, filters, large fittings and irregular components — including ones that have already been rounded off or damaged past what any wrench will hold. It is also used simply to hold something that will not stay put: a pipe being welded, an awkward casting being worked on, a cylinder that wants to roll off the bench.

The locking mechanism is the family's over-centre toggle: an adjusting screw sets the tension, squeezing the handles drives the linkage past its pivot so the tool holds itself, and a release lever frees it.

It is steel plate material, nickel plated.

The buyers are plumbers and pipe fitters, oil, gas and process maintenance, vehicle and plant mechanics dealing with filters and cylinders, agricultural and machinery repairers, fabricators, and hardware dealers supplying industrial trades.

Two notes. Wrap the chain so it takes as much of the circumference as it will — the more chain in contact, the better the grip and the less the load is concentrated. And on thin-walled or plated pipe the chain will still bite and mark, so if appearance or wall thickness matters, a strap wrench is the gentler tool. Keep the chain and pivots oiled and free of grit. Message us on WhatsApp for a price.