Piers Carpenter Road Tests Maun’s Half Round And Flat Jaws Parallel Plier

Maun's Half Round And Flat Jaws Parallel Plier

Interested in the Maun Half Round And Flat Jaws Parallel Plier?

Don’t just take our word for it.

In this post, professional jewellery-maker Pliers Carpenter puts the Maun plier to the test.

About Maun Jewellery Tools

Maun has long been a respected brand within the jewellery sector and community, so much so that our tools are often referred to simply as Mauns.

We’re renowned for our British made, high-quality, durable tools that are suitable for professional use, last through the years and deliver results.

Benefits of the Half Round And Flat Jaws Parallel Plier for Jewellery Making

Jewellery makers have many processes they follow when creating their masterpieces, so having tools that can help along the way makes life that little easier. Our Half Round And Flat Jaws Parallel Plier has a profiled jaw which makes ring bending much easier. The smooth jaws create a flawless, mark-free result. Parallel jaws enable grip securely along their whole length. The perfect tool for gripping and manipulating heavy-duty materials.

Maun currently manufactures just one version of this plier:

•   Maun 4876-140 Half Round And Flat Jaws Parallel Plier 140 mm.

Piers road-tested them, and here’s what he had to say...

If you don’t have time to watch the whole video, we have highlighted Piers’ key messages as he road-tests the 4876-140, a 140 mm flat nose parallel plier with one half-round jaw which allows for perfect bending operation. He speaks on the benefits of the tool, and how it can best be used.

“Half Round And Flat Jaws Parallel Plier 140 mm, 4876-140. I really like them. They are a nice! Heavy enough to bend some really tough metal."

Piers highlights how the parallel function on Maun pliers helps to enhance his work, and make his job that little bit easier by cutting down the tidying up process.

"What I like about them, and I say it on all these Maun pliers, but it’s the parallel function. If you're bending some metal up that’s quite wide, the metal tends to bow in the middle. So instead of being flat, the inside will dip down and the outside will come out, just because of the tension in the metal, once it's bent it’s the way that it works with a normal pair of half-round and flat pliers, it’s the function. A normal pair will always open into a 'V'. You'll always have a gap at the top, you're only bending from the bottom, which is what gives the metal the ability to bow in the middle. When you're tidying it up afterwards, you’ve got to file it all off."

He expressed that the shallow curve works well for the most popular ring sizes and larger, as they have a shallow curve compared with your adverage half-round pliers.

"Another thing that I like about them, they have a shallow curve. For your average ring sizes, it's perfect. I have often thought the normal half-round pliers are too steep in the gradient of the curve. The half-round side will go inside the ring, and the flat will go on the outside, so you bend into that. With these, because of the shallow curve, it's quite easy just to keep going at that curve, and you'll end up with a nice consistent round shape. I think it's really important when making these to get them as round as possible. These pliers are great for doing that!"

The parallel action enables you to keep the metal secure throughout it's full length, without moving around in the jaws. Enhancing the final look of the jewellery piece.

"I like how it holds the metal all the way up, you can fix it at 90-degrees and it's quite easy to see the metal. You are getting a grip along the whole metal, it's not just at the bottom. When you do get it at 90 degrees it's easy to bend at 90 degrees, whereas with the traditional ones you’re only holding at the bottom. When you have to put a lot of force into bending something, the tendency is that you'll slip around meaning your not longer at 90-degrees anymore, you put that bend in there and you're making the ring all wibbly wobbly."

Piers compares the size of his favourite pair of Maun's, the Snipe Nose Smooth Jaws Parallel Plier, which comes in a full length of 125 mm against the Half Round and Flat Jaws Parallel Plier which comes in a full length of 140 mm.

"I think they are a nice size, they are a bit bigger than my favourite pair of Maun's which is the Snipe Nose Parallels, but for these I do think that’s probably better, as some ring shanks can be really tough. Where the handles are thicker than your average plier, I personally find this much more comfortable to squeeze them tight."

Piers offers some tips on how you can customise your plier to suit the different processes in jewellery making.

"On my finger-jointed half rounds, I like to put a groove in for bending up metal for collets, on the inside I've got a little line cut out of the flat and a little line cut out of the half-round, enabling you to hold a bit of flat wire without it moving around. You can then bend the metal round so you can make a tapered collet, without a collet punch. That could be a handy thing to add to these."

He concludes with a quick re-cap, explaining the perks of the Maun VS traditional Half Round and Flat Jaws Parallel Pliers. He expresses that he has been converted, the Maun pair are now his go-to.

"Great for bending thick metal, or any tough metal. I really like the shallowness of the angled jaw. I quite like that they are wider, your normal ones are not as wide as these. I do a lot of ring sizes, I do a lot of ring making and these are my go-to pair, it's only if I'm doing something that’s really tiny that I'll go for a different pair. I have definitely been converted to these parallel ones. I just think you get a much better grip on the metal, it's easier to get a nice bend, yeah they are good!”

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Further Reading

We hope you enjoyed this post by Piers Carpenter road testing the Maun Half Round And Flat Jaws Parallel Plier.