Pliers
Browse used pliers for sale from riders across the UK. This category covers the plier-type tools that earn a place on a bike bench rather than in a general toolbox: master link pliers that open and close a quick link without three hands, circlip pliers for the retaining rings in hubs and suspension lowers, needle-nose for cable ends and small springs, and cutters sized for 1.2mm braided inner cable and 5mm outer housing. It suits home mechanics assembling a bench kit and anyone who has met the one job a multi-tool cannot do.
What do bike pliers do that ordinary pliers don't?
Three of them are jobs a hardware-shop plier cannot manage. Master link pliers have hooked, angled tips that pull or squeeze the two halves of a quick link along the chain line, so you can break a chain without a chain tool. Circlip pliers come with fixed or interchangeable tips, internal or external, and the tip diameter has to match the ring's eyes — 1.3mm and 1.7mm cover most bicycle rings. Cable cutters have a compound scissor edge that shears braided steel cleanly instead of crushing it into a frayed brush; ordinary side cutters are the reason so many gear cables end in a blob of solder or a chewed ferrule.
Master link pliers or circlip pliers first?
Master link pliers, if you ride a bike with a quick link and no chain tool at home, since they turn chain removal into a ten-second job for cleaning or a cassette swap. Circlip pliers matter once you start servicing your own hubs, pedals or fork lowers, where a snapped ring or a splayed tip means a stripped bearing you cannot reassemble. Both are single-purpose, and neither has anything to do with the fastener-driving tools in hand tools more broadly.
Can't I just use a spanner or an Allen key instead?
Not for these jobs, and the reverse causes damage. Pliers grip and cut; the moment you use serrated jaws on a bolt head or a hex fitting you round the flats, which is why wrenches and Allen keys exist as separate categories. The one crossover is a hydraulic hose barb, which some people press home with smooth-jawed pliers rather than a dedicated press.
What should I check on used pliers?
Close the jaws and look at the tips end-on: they should meet flush, with no side-to-side wobble at the pivot and no daylight between the cutting edges. On cutters, run a thumbnail along the blade for nicks — a single notch from cutting a spoke or a zip-tie mandrel will leave every cable frayed at that point. Circlip tips get bent, splayed or snapped short, so compare the two sides against each other. On master link pliers, the hooks blunt and spread with use, and the light return spring often goes missing. Surface rust in the pivot is worth nothing once oiled; a pivot rivet that has worn oval is not fixable.
What is a fair price for used pliers?
Good plier steel barely wears in home use, so this is one of the better used buys in a workshop — expect to pay around half of new for a Park Tool or Knipex tool that will outlast the bike. The exception is cutters: a used pair with a damaged edge is worth almost nothing, and new cutters are cheap enough that it is not worth the gamble unless you can see the blades. Cheap unbranded circlip pliers with soft tips are the other case for buying new, since a tip that flexes under load launches the ring across the room.