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Coast Pocket Pliers (circa 1998-2002)

us Offline ChopperCharles

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Coast Pocket Pliers (circa 1998-2002)
on: August 07, 2018, 08:43:55 PM
So today's Cheap and Cheerful is a pair of Coast Pocket Pliers. These are a medium sized tool, at 3.93 x 1.3 x 0.75" all folded up. They have nice black plastic handles (actually zytel, a type of impact-resistant nylon). These are easily differentiated from the cheap china pliers with the plastic-coated handles in that  they have "Coast" and "Pocket Pliers" imprinted in the plastic, as well as both a metric and inch ruler on the sides.  My pliers are nearly brand new, they look like they've never been used, so this will be a fun review.

First, mine needed oiling, as it was very stiff to open the pliers. Two dabs of oil and a brief working and the tool feels like new. It opens very smoothly. The plier head has significant play in the jaws. Roughly 0.9mm of side play at the tips, which is a lot. I'm not talking about deflection, I'm talking about wiggle. It moves 0.4mm in one direction and 0.5mm in the other. So that's bad.

The handles are made out of beefy metal, and I can squeeze with all my might and the handles do not flex at all. Most of the cheap tools of this vintage have a ton of flex in the handles, so that's good.

The wire cutters are pretty awful. This is largely due to the play in the pliers. I can cut lamp cord with thick insulation, and 18ga speaker wire... but 12ga primary wire and zip ties are out of the question.

All of the tools lock, and they're on the difficult side to open. Meaning, they don't flop about when closed. They open into the lock with a solid SNAP, and also snap down into place nicely. To unlock a tool, you must partially open another tool. That releases the lock and allows both tools to be closed.

So the tools. The plain edged clip-point blade was sharp enough to cut paper, but couldn't even bite into receipt paper. The serrated blade is quite sharp, It easily cuts paper, and powers through paracord. However, the serrations are very pointy, which tends to fray the paracord as it cuts. The phillips driver looks great... until you use it. It cams out very easily. The flat drivers are plentiful (3) and nothing to write home about. One is on the bottle opener, one on the serrated blade, and one is stand-alone. All are similarly sized. The file on the serrated blade is aggressive, but doesn't appear to be heat treated, meaning steel will wear it out quickly. It's pretty small though, so it's really only suitable for fingernails. It does a stellar job at that. The can opener is barely adequate for the job. The tool is small and the handles thick, and it doesn't get the greatest lock on the rim. You can open a can with it, but most other can openers I've tried work a lot better. The scissors are small and light duty.  They don't have a replaceable spring, but instead use a metal bar, somewhat similar to wenger scissors. Works well, but only really suitable for paper. They cannot cut paracord or zip ties.

The sheath is very, very nice. It's heavy gauge ballistic nylon with double-stitched seams and a nice clotch patch with "Coast Pocket Pliers" embroidered in red.

Note: I was able to tighten the plier pivot slightly with an arbor press, and the pliers were then able to cut zip ties poorly. I could either get them so tight they bind, or remove just a dash of play. Nothing inbetween. They're just not machined to very tight tolerances.

Overall the tool quality is high. Much, much better than any of the cheapie chinese multitools you see floating around everywhere. But they're still not GOOD. They're acceptable. The tool quality makes up for the looseness in the jaws. I was hoping they'd be a diamond in the rough, like the Coast Pocket Pliers, but alas it's not to be.

Charles.

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