The Basin Spanner and The Tube Cutter

The Basin Spanner and The Tube Cutter are both great tools for the professional plumbers such as Harrow Boiler Breakdown .

The Basin Spanner

This is a tool that is absolutely essential if there is a requirement to tighten or loosen nuts that are always in the locations that seem totally inaccessible such as behind baths, basins or sinks where the space to work is very restricted . There are several designs of the basin spanner with the design selection being of a personal choice. The most common type and a trade favourite is the adjustable wrench type. It is as it states an adjustable wrench which can accommodate various sizes of nuts. It has a swiveling set of jaws which enable it to go into any space that is tight in order to tighten or loosen the nuts. The turning direction i.e. clockwise or anti-clockwise of the wrench can be changed simply by altering the direction to which the toothed jaws on the swivel head is facing.

The Tube Cutter.

This is not an essential tool as cutting a pipe can be done with different tool such as a hacksaw or junior hacksaw etc. However this is a small tool that is able to cut a pipe squarely and with a great deal of ease to the user. The biggest drawback is they will put a small internal burr in the pipe that is cut. Often this is not a major issue for a plumber but it has the potential to cause noisy pipework after the work is finished meaning nothing can be done about it. Some cutters do have a reamer to accommodate this problem and the burr should really be reamed or filed away.

The cutters jaws are placed around the pipe and wound down by a handle until a single roller touches the pipe gripping it. Then the cutter is rotated around the pipe and then the handle wound down again. This is repeated until the cutter causes the pipe to part leaving a straight cut. A handy tool to have. Harrow Boiler Repair plumbers carry these tools.
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