In addition to this Wiha, I have used three other 10"/250mm parallel-jaw
'pliers-wrench' tools from German and Austrian competitors. The other three designs are superb
quality tools, but all require pressing a cumbersome button that protrudes from one side of the head
to set the jaw range. The Wiha is set simply by opening the handles wide; it can then be preset
directly onto a nut without placing fingers near the workpiece, or testing and withdrawing multiple
times. I find the Wiha can also be set one-handed, while reaching into a tight space. Two of the
competing samples I own also have apparent machining/forging marks on the jaws which, being
hard-chrome plated, can scratch or imprint malleable workpieces. They also appear to have more
side-to-side "play" in the lower jaws. The black oxide Wiha jaws are dead smooth,
and the mechanism on mine has less than 0.4mm side play. In fairness, the 10" Wiha opens
about 4mm less than the competing brands (46 vs. 50mm), although it's debatable how useful the
extreme opening really is on any of them since the handles become very awkward to squeeze. This
brings me to my only real complaint; for precision electromechanical assembly work, and for piping,
tasks at which these tools excel, it would be great to have smaller and larger sizes available. I
hope Wiha will consider producing a 150-180 mm and 300 mm variant of this superior design soon.
WARNING: 