Tips for Model Railroading Tools: Parallel Jaw Pliers
Gerry LeoneDescription
Model railroading construction requires various tools depending on the task at hand. You likely already have most of the basic tools you will need for your model railroad in your toolbox, but there are some tools you may have never heard of that can make your modeling process much easier. Most specialized tools are fairly inexpensive and easy to find, you just need to know what you are looking for.
Model Railroad Hand Tools
The wide range of tools sold at hardware stores can be overwhelming. There are several different types of pliers alone such as needle-nose, locking, slip-joint, just to name a few. Educating yourself on specialized tools can be extremely beneficial when it comes to the railroading hobby. Using the correct tools can make a world of difference in the outcome of your layout.
In this video, NMRA Master Model Railroader Gerry Leone demonstrates the parallel jaw pliers. He begins by explaining the difference between a regular pliers and a parallel jaw pliers to highlight the major variations between the two. Then, he explains a couple of the best uses for a parallel jaw pliers when it comes to model railroading.
Gerry provides two particular examples for using parallel jaw pliers. The first suggestion he gives is using them while building turnouts. The parallel jaw pliers come in handy when bending guard rails. The second suggestion he gives is using them while scribing styrene to cut it into small strips. It can be difficult to cut small strips off, but the parallel jaw pliers do an excellent job of holding the styrene in place. Gerry goes into further detail regarding the advantages of using a parallel jaw pliers in each scenario.
There is an abundance of specialized tools that will make a great addition to your toolbox. Learn more about tools from model railroad experts like Gerry Leone to enhance the construction stages of your model railroading experience.
Model Railroaders love tools, especially when they have the right tool for the right job. I've got a bunch of specialized tools here that really are the right tool for the right job. They're fairly inexpensive, They're certainly easy to use and they'll help you do your Model Railroading even better. And let's start out, with a tool called Parallel job pliers. Now let's think about regular Pliers.
If you think about the way they work they work in kind of a scissors action and they close from the axis down to the points. Parallel job pliers on the other hand, the two jaws come down exactly at the same time. So as you close them, you can see that there is no scissors action. In fact, they do close evenly with one another. Now you can certainly use Parallel Jaw Pliers, to tighten nuts, hexagonal and square nuts because it will grip the entire side of the nut, but that's not the best use for these things.
The best use for these things in model railroading, is actually twofold. One of which, if you're bending guard rails if you're building turnouts and you're bending guardrails, what's great about Parallel jaw pliers is that you can put the rail head between the jaws and just bend it. And you can see that the jaws are actually gripping the entire rail and you get a nice bend in your guard rails, in your wing rails, on your turnouts. The other place that parallel job pliers really shines, is when you're scribing styrene to cut it. Now, you know how easy it is to cut styrene you discord once or twice with a hobby knife, and then you break it off.
However, if you're trying to make little strips of styrene it's very, very difficult to break those little strips off, parallel job pliers can really help in that case. I've got a piece of styrene here that I've already pre scored with a hobby knife and watch how easy it is to break this little piece off, this piece is a little bit less than about a quarter of an inch here, but if you get your parallel job players on there, parallel them to the cut that you made. It's very easy to just grab these. And your piece of styrene just snaps exactly right off. Parallel job pliers are a tool that you're not going to use often, but when you do need it it's a tool that really, really comes in handy.
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