ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Electricians' scissors and hammers?

BTW, the electrician's hammers are real good for smashing thumbs. I am an amateur wood butcher(Dad is a carpenter) and switching from carpenter's hammer to the electrician's hammer is kinda strange.

The hammer's straight long claw has a very good use. When you are trying to nail on a box between two studs that are very close together, (mostly when installing switches near door jambs) the hammer head sometimes cannot engage the nail head. Try reversing the hammer head and hit the nail with the claw points. A little practice and it gets easy. The claw bieng tapered down fits the smaller spacing allowing a sort of a hit from the hammer. It beats turning the hammer sideways and giving little baby taps to the nail head.

The cable splicers knife and the electrician's sissors are pretty standars issue in telecom work. The knife for jackets on multi pair cable and the sissors for cutting and stripping 24 ga twisted pairs. I have used both and never really got comfortable with either. For stripping, I perferred a tool that looked like a small pair of dikes but only one side had an edge, the other was flat and they were very easy to use.

The lineman's knife is not in vogue in this area. Virtually all the linemen here use linoleum knives (the kind with the wood handle and hooked blade, like an exagerrated version of the lineman's knife)..S

The scissors were part of the standard-issue toolkit of the GPO here in England for telephone engineers.

Apart from cables themselves, the scissors were deemed necessary for the waxed lacing cord that was commonly used to bundle conductors together in equipment.

These days, lacing cord has been largely superseded by plastic cable ties of various types.

Ooh, somebody knows about lacing twine! I remember lessons on how to properly use the stuff. There was a special way of wrapping so it didn't all come apart if you cut it in one place. I can't remember how to do it but I remember learning it once upon a time.

Here you go Jim:
http://www.dairiki.org/hammond/cable-lacing-howto/

I just saw that page on lacing twine tying.

All I can say is THANK GOD for tie-wraps!!

I once saw a panel (probably belonged to a phone system of sorts) with wire that was bundled and laced. It does seem like very intricate work.

The stuff is still sold -- it's either waxed or something so it holds its shape and doesn't rot. Expensive. Mouser Electronics sells rolls of it.