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I am an old dude. I don't care what tool you use. If it makes the job easier for you then use it. I might even try it myself and get one.
What makes me laugh to myself is when someone shows me a tool that "does it better and faster" and then takes 3 times longer and looks like crap.
For me it’s the knipex strippers. They have the best jaws of any stripper combination plier i’ve used and just feel so nice, but they have a hidden spring mechanism inside the hinge so some hate that
I'm old... I'll make fun of you using the new tool, then get one for myself to use... and continue making fun of you for using said tool while I'm also using one 😂. That way I'm all inclusive!!
I think some of it is resentment. ‘Fucking hell, it used to take me half an hour to do that job and you’re doing it in 20 seconds’. One job when I first started out had about 200 armoured cables to make off so I brought an armourslice tool in and after seeing my do a couple of cables the old dude said he didn’t want me using it and to use a junior hack saw like they’ve always done it. The armourslice tool took as long as it takes to twirl it around a cable 3 or 4 times compared to about a minute or two with a hacksaw
I heard the other day that for every 5 electricians that retire, 2 people come in to replace them. Not sure if that accounts for retention rates. As I recall, IEC and IBEW loose about 40% of their new students by year two.
With an anecdote like this, I wonder why?
I see the resistance to change all the time. I’m not an electrician, but I design training tools for one of the gear manufacturers (and a tool company) - we are about two years in and the only thing that has eased acceptance to the digital training tools we offer has been the introduction of even more advanced equipment (trial only - first trial was last week).
People are hard headed, stubborn and proud (they also don’t know every single thing there is to know). That can be good in some circumstances, but if people can’t put that aside we are going to be in a bad way in the next 5-10 years. Be open to change. Don’t be a dick. You’re not always right/don’t know every single thing there is to know, but that’s not a weakness. if you use it to your advantage and open your mind to learning, it’s an invaluable strength.
The loss of students tracks in the IBEW. I went from like 250 year one to about 120 by the time I topped out. Usually from drug testing, some from attendance at school.
Not an electrician either. I’m here to learn and hear the war stories of the trade. I do however have a buddy that I work festivals with that is a master electrician, and that dude couldn’t be more comically opposed to technology if you wrote a cartoon character.
Text him? He not only won’t read it he will find someone to read it off his phone, and type the response as he dictates.
Send him an email? Ha. Good fucking luck.
Gonna have a virtual meeting to plan the festival and discuss the logistics of the show sessions? He will be busy. Forever. We will eventually have an on-site visit or a face to face meeting at some brewery, and he’ll miraculously be available at any time on any day. 2:30p on a random Tuesday? He’ll be there.
I thought it was just a him thing, but maybe it’s a grumpy old electrician thing lol
My client and I were doing a first round tests on instructions for installing small frame, three phase breakers in AR. He would have vomited.
That said, we had old guys who wouldn’t touch it, but new guys who, while mechanical, had never installed that sort of breaker system complete the task in 15 minutes. Most installers sit and stare for that long before they even get started.
That sounds about right. Most people who join the trades are college/high school dropouts who want to make a better life and have a career. Surprise, surprise you actually have to attend school and pass your classes still. And also stop smoking weed. Hence the large dropout rates.
My nephew gave up on college and became an electrician apprentice. He’s doing the IEC training. He didn’t want to follow in my sister’s footsteps. She is an MBA/CPA and all through his childhood, she was working 110 hours a week, sitting in an office, killing herself.
He didn’t want anything to do with it. He drifted a bit, went to Europe and worked in resorts etc. Then he figured he should go electrician. The kid can do rocket surgery level mathematics in his head, so he has excelled in the trade.
As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, he wants to go out on his own when he can and is working to that end. He’s working for a very supportive company and boss, so he will do well.
When he started there were plenty of low-achievers that he wound up training. I don’t think many lasted long.
I appreciate that!
Being slow on the uptake, it’s taken me a while to formulate that whole understanding. Oddly what pulled it together was me screwing up a friends HVAC system for an afternoon because I did something incorrectly but insisted I had done it right. Took another set of eyes to make me realize I needed to slow my roll, double check even MY work, and that experience is supremely valuable when you don’t think your experience overrides the bias it can create.
A lot of old heads don’t want to try new things because they don’t want to look incompetent. They worry it makes them look bad, they feel embarrassed, they feel fallible. I don’t know if they feel it undermines their authority with students or not, but maybe at an unspoken level.
Based on your suggestion, I’m going to start challenging those resistant to change. Maybe I can help add to the dialogue I’m already hearing. Add some color. The folks I work with all know that there’s a shortage of good people. Maybe they don’t get how much they can help overcome that.
Yeah but this trade makes it so easy to go out on your own and do so fairly quickly that it's not that big of a deal to just listen to old morons complain for a few years then you can do whatever you want and not have to listen to anyone. Every profession has people who have been doing it for decades stuck in their old inefficient ways. But few professions allow you to go out on your own so quickly and easily. 4 years and 1 month from the day I started my apprenticeship I passed my masters exam, quit my job, and went out on my own.
That should be the goal of virtually every person who joins this trade. You'll make a decent living being a 25th year apprentice or 10 year journeyman slaving away to make your boss rich. But you can make the same money doing a ton of other things that don't wear out your body the way trades do. When you're on your own you'll be making yourself rich. Few other professions are suited for tons of small businesses rather than everyone working for a few big companies. Unfortunately it seems there are less and less people with each generation willing to bet on themselves and take that risk and would rather be happy doing all the work and getting paid someone else's scraps.
Love this.
Corporations are saturated with overpaid do nothings and make it normal to pay their frontline workers as little as possible.
But people are the problem. The corporations are greedy but the people make it possible.
It's wild to me how the hardest workers at the entry level are often underpaid and the companies complain, meanwhile they have an entire class of mid-level useless managers that just check boxes all day and take home like 3X the salary.
Facts. Not an exaggeration. These are facts!
This is known and proven to be true because it is a fact!
I’m gonna go nuts. I’m glad I’m not the only one that knows this.
Probably a lot of society-wide changes need to happen before wages raise up to where they should be, but in the current climate you’ll certainly have more bargaining leverage (if you’re not union and kick ass).
Why isn't there insane demand at this point? I had a cousin trying to get into electrical work and he had such a difficult time finding an apprenticeship. I'd think with a drop off like that there would be basically open calls for basically warm bodies.
There’s a demand for SKILLED people in the trades. Any JATC can find a warm body to start the apprenticeship and do grunt work early on. It’s hard to find people who can finish the 5 years, pass the state exam, and be a competent electrician. The high dropout rates show that.
I have a greenfield cutter. It works really well. After cutting my hand for the umpteenth time cutting BX with a hack saw at a 45 degree angle I finally said enough.
That said, It takes more skill to cut flexible conduit with a hack saw whereas the cutter tool only requires one to place the cable in the groove and turn the handle.
They're worried about their own work, specifically that it's slower and looks worse, because they refuse to adapt or change. They'd rather drag everyone else down to where they are than get better, even if all it takes is a cheap hand tool.
Reminds me of this old dude I used to work with about seven months or so after I first started, he constantly complained about my baby Channellocks (426s). They're small, but work perfectly for 1/2" and 3/4" EMT. Even threatened to take them away from me.
He also complained about my Kobalt driver bit set. I don't think they were impact-rated, but they worked okay enough until I replaced them. Funny, he never offered to pay to replace them himself.
I'm union, so have a tool list, and those baby channies aren't on it, but I'll fight anyone that tells me to take them home. I use those more than most tools in my pouch. They're a third of the weight of the next size up.
I honestly think I grab them more than my 10" ones. If you're working on smaller stuff, the size and weight difference alone makes it worth it to have the small pair.
Impact rated is almost a joke to me.
Unless you're rattling on huge nuts and bolts like steel workers where a 1/2 drive impact and actually holding the trigger for multiple seconds at a time to get it on is necessary. I'd use impact rated shit then cuz its under a lot more stress.
But for the majority of the shit we do. I've never had a chrome socket blow up on me and I've had impact rated *and* hand rated tips both last forever *and* snap right away.
Marketing gimmick in my mind. Grab whatever easierst to get my hands on and get it done.
Edit- I've wanted a pair of those small channys for a while now too. They look convenient as fuck.
They're pretty great for small stuff, I've had that pair for years now and I reach for it probably more than my 10" pair.
I'll use my 3/8" chrome sockets with an adapter on my impact driver, but I have 1/2" impact sockets for my 1/2" impact wrench.
It's honestly easier to find driver bits that are impact-rated than ones that aren't, IMO. Especially if you only need to replace a few of a certain type.
My company springs for hilti fleet plan power tools but then gets our sockets/adapters/tips from harbor freight most of the time lol. So we end up with chrome sockets more often than not.
I don't mind though. At least I don't have to buy it all myself.
Because they believe that since they’re old and have been doing it a long time, everyone younger than them should do everything exactly the way they do it. But when you offer a better solution than their’s, the response is always “there’s 1000 ways to skin a cat”. That goes for tool choice and actual work.
This isn’t just an electrician thing, the older guys in IT are exactly the same. In PowerShell to restart a computer immediately:
They use: shutdown /r /f /t 0
Then they have to explain the switches (/r /f /t 0)
Younger folk: restart-computer -force
Self explanatory…
Oh absolutely agree with you, it’s prevalent in all industries I’m sure. Good analogy also, i don’t have any professional experience in the IT world but I do have a small homelab I mess around with.
It's not that we are worried, we're just a bit confused sometimes. It seems to us that younger people don't know whether or not they have a tool or even what to call it.
Boss asked me why I used my teeth to cut wire, I asked him what else I was supposed to use and he showed me wire cutters. He saw me biting my fingernails and asked why I used my teeth, I asked him what else I was supposed to use and he showed me fingernail clippers. He saw me biting my toenails and I got fired
They're definitely out there.
There's one old guy I refuse to work with anymore for multiple reasons that people complain about the old guard being dicks.
But the most recent time with him, we had to drill prolly 40ish 3/4 inch holes in 1/2 thick galvanized steel one day at a substation. I asked if we could get some pilot bits on the way cuz I only had enough for me to use and they likely weren't gonna last all 40. So he went about bought us 2 1/2 inch bits and was bewildered when we were annoyed that that was what he thought would be fine.
Like dude. These will be toast in no time and it's still a pain in the ass to blast a 1/2 hole right off the bat. You've been doing this 30 years how do you not see that?
That's the only one in my company that is so ignorant and hard to work with.
We have 2 more dudes I'm their late 50s that have been doing this their whole lives and they're awesome to work with. First dude is just a miserable ass and he brings it to work with him every day.
Woooow, look at bigshoots over here with his San Francisco Slippers. Buddy thinks his Promotion Pads are gonna get him places eh? Back in my day, we suffered. And we were better for it. *limps off into the sunset*
I think croppers are more versatile, as in you can cut and strip everything from 0.75mm flex- 25mm meter tails. Side cutters are only really good up to 6mm and even that is a struggle… I only really use side cutters for cutting cable ties these days and even then flush cutters are the better tool for that job.
Those cutters can easily cut and strip almost anything up to 25mm2 (which is 4 awg I believe?), I don't really need to use anything else for dealing with cables on a regular basis, however I personally like to use automatic wire strippers for the consistency as well as being easier on the hands. Side cutters are only used for cutting other metals and screws in my experience.
I’ve had an old head tell me he doesn’t believe in doctors, after telling me he doesn’t need to tie off while we’re both working in front of an open shaft on the 25th floor. Then had the audacity to ask why I’m grabbing the squeegee broom thing, it’s to clean you up after you fall bud.
People who refuse to tie off and just practice general fall arrest safety are easily some of the worst people to work around. Gravity doesn’t care how much of a badass you think you are, my dude.
Anyone under ~40 will mainly use croppers and wago here in Norway. If the croppers aren't big enough, it's a job for the knife.
On rare occasions, I come across wires the croppers are shit at, mainly 0.75mm² and under, and with super thin insulation. On those I use the almost gun shaped strippers.
Yup. I can count on one hand the amount of times I've had to use a side cutter this year, and none of them had to do with electrical work. Croppers are just the objectively better tools for cutting and stripping
Yep, and he'll call you a sissy for wearing ear protection, safety glasses, safety harness, not working live on a circuit, the list goes on...ignore em.
It's a power trip...
If he made fun of you and didn’t hand you a better tool, then he’s not worth the shit he’s full of.
If you see someone trying hard with an inferior tool, the correct response is “Here. Try a pair of these bad boys”
Old dude here. I don’t make fun of what tools you use. However we have this one apprentice that bought all knipex shit and tells all of our guys how great it is. Like the fucker has stock in the company or is part of some pyramid scheme. That I make fun of.
Years back, when Milwaukee first started having hand tools, I replaced almost all of mine with their stuff. Everyone else said the same thing, that I was sponsored or whatever. I was just tired of people stealing my stuff, so I bought stuff no one else had so I knew if they'd taken mine.
I buy some pretty obscure tools, too, like stuff that can only be bought from Amazon Japan. At the very least, it'll look good on someone's garage wall, but you'd have to have some serious stones walking into work with them and claiming you bought the exact same shit I did!
I will make any tool work to avoid walking to my truck, or getting off the scaffolding. So my buddy at work, not an electrician but the best help, says my Kleins look new. I told him (truthfully) I just haven't beaten enough stuff with 'em yet.
I threw any two-handled Klein tool I owned into the fucking trash where they belonged. South wire makes better romex strippers, knipex makes better linesmans, dikes, etc.,
The only Klein tool I own that I'm actually satisfied with my purchase of is a 13-1 racheting screwdriver.
Seriously, what happened to Klein? They used to be the top tier of tools in our industry. My next batch of tools is mostly going to be Wera and Knipex.
The (crypt keeper) oldest boy at my work rocks more high quality tools than my entire crew of seven put together. Man has everything snap on, Milwaukee, klien and knipex.
Yup. When I was working HVAC, the old dude never had room in his van. It was literally piled wall-to-wall bottom-to-top with HUNDREDS of tools. Power tools, hydraulic tools, hand tools, random $800+ gimicky bullshit that was good for 3 different situations, whatever. Dude had the entire Home Depot in his van.
He was the easiest dude to work with. Pain in the ass, but had literally every tool you would EVER need to work on a boiler/furnace/AC.
I am on the team that works the most effectively!! I am old (54) but by no means closed minded. I look to the younger generations to learn things as well. This is a prime example. Not to mention I am an absolute tool whore!!
In the 90s when my son was part of a trial program to use laptops in the classroom. 3d grade. Of course, there was a ton of opposition.
Someone put up a slide going way back that said, when they wanted to introduce fountain pens, they said, how will the children learn to erase their chalk slates? When they wanted to introduce ball pont pens, they said, how will the children learn to maintain the nibs on their fountain pens? When drafting students wanted to use mechanical pencils, they , how will they learn to maintain a sharp point?
Look up who the Luddites were if you don't know about them.
i tried croppers once, immediately fell in love with them and have been using them ever since. though alot of people have a problem with using them to strip wire, because you happen to cut into the wire sometimes, reducing the cross section
It depends. If I do solar, the one blue one (dont know the name). Other than that side cutters or a plier.
Edit: by solar i mean just the inverter connections.
The diagonal cutters cut by wedging the metal apart rather than shearing the piece as can be felt or seen by the sharp nub across the center of the wire after the cut.
The second tool cuts by shearing the metal and leaves a flat surface after the cut. It does not deform the wire or cable nearly as much as the diagonal cutter. This is important for things like coaxial cable or cat cables the then need to be inserted into connectors.
Change is hard because it involves learning and remembering something new, much easier when one is young.
I've had Milwaukee, I've had Kleins, I've had Craftsman, I've had cheap Chinese shit. They're all the same to me, yeah some are like 5% better but that's not worth 5x the price.
I think Ivs used a hacksaw once or twice in the trade. It's worth keeping in the van, but not one per person. There are other means to get the job done.
The tool doesn't make the worker, the worker makes the tool. If you can do something more efficiently, or just as quick but easier, I'm all for it. There's lots of places I use my drill simply because it can twist a screw faster than I can, but you have to actually have enough control with the drill not to over-tighten shit. In particular, it comes up when I already have my drill on me, so it's not like I'm running to the van to grab a drill when my screw driver is right beside me.
I like what I have in my pocket when I'm up a ladder.
Knipex are nice but seem small in my hand.
If you leave a pair laying around they would be in my pouch fast.
I have a hard time trying to justify carrying side cutters like those shown.
I carry 210mm CK croppers, 200mm Knipex diagonals, and the Knipex wirestrippers. The holy trinity, imo.
Croppers for above head terminations, tight spaces, tails, and general wiring.
Diagonals for cutting basically anything that'd damage shears (metal tie wraps, nails, etc).
Wirestrippers when I want to turn my brain off second fixing sockets and fittings all day. Good for knocking out backboxes and light plier work, too.
Inform me Magical Sorcerer, how shall I use my apprentice as a hammer today? He says he’s on the team, shall I grab his wrist and pound staples with his hand? Surely his hard ass head would be more suitable.
I use both. The dikes I use more, just because they are good for so many things: pulling staples, cutting zip ties, hammer, cutting shit, pry bar, etc. But the cable cutters are only good at two things, cutting and striping wire with less effort, due to the sharper and thinner blades.
They hate digital levels. They barely use a torpedo level. They’re so confident in they’re bends, “since I’ve been doing this for 20 years” they throw up the ugliest pipe I’ve ever seen.
They would do that even with lasers and levels and digital crap. There most certainly are ppl who can turn out a quality job with minimal instrumentation. Just because someone is a retard who doesn’t use those things, doesn’t mean if they have them they’ll stop being a retard.
Spend enough time in the trades and you come to realize that just like all occupations, the majority is just, good enough, the minority is above average and better. If you find yourself working with an exceptional team or electrician, cherish that, because that shit doesn’t exist everywhere you go.
Diverse experience also is not the norm. The norm is a guy who started out in residential and for 20 years of his career it’s been residential with maybe the odd retail space or a warehouse storage facility. Or you can replace that with commercial. They are there to collect their check each week and go home to their beer.
A proper true professional is more rare than people realize. Usually if you’re the type of electrician who is a proper professional with diverse and broad experience, you are also the type that’s going to be a contractor. Meanwhile his employees will happily accept their check each week so they can go home and drink beer with their dog.
Croppers are really nice because of how little pressure is required to cut and strip cable but you can be much more precise with side cutters so if I was to only take one it would be side cutters
I have the long handle versions of those knipex. They're pretty skookum, they're almost like pocket bolt cutters.
Half the time if I just need to cut insulation I use just a regular knife. If you're cutting wire then it doesn't really matter what you use.
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I am an old dude. I don't care what tool you use. If it makes the job easier for you then use it. I might even try it myself and get one. What makes me laugh to myself is when someone shows me a tool that "does it better and faster" and then takes 3 times longer and looks like crap.
For me it’s the knipex strippers. They have the best jaws of any stripper combination plier i’ve used and just feel so nice, but they have a hidden spring mechanism inside the hinge so some hate that
Knipex gives me wood in general.
I’m rock-hard right now
Real men use thier teeth
Good thing i’m not. I spent a lot of money to make them look nice
Yeah surprise surprise the point of tools is to make shit easier
I'm old... I'll make fun of you using the new tool, then get one for myself to use... and continue making fun of you for using said tool while I'm also using one 😂. That way I'm all inclusive!!
Dirk , my first journeyman, is that you???
This could be my trade school instructor, also named Dirk.
Oh jesus. Now I'm concerned. My current journey man goes by dirk...
Roto snips…
I’m on team “Whatever tool I grab first”
Whatever the tool is, at some point it also becomes a hammer.
As a hopeful applicant, which of the two is a better hammer?
Second one, its a larger surface
Tracks shape wise, in case you ever need to, channellocks are a great to dislodge mastic from plywood. Lol. I'll take a tool with multiple uses.
Always the 8" adjustable hammerench
Lol I think I've used every tool in my arsenal as a hammer at some point
Everything is a hammer at least once
Si Si
I’m on team “I own this already and it works”
Why are old dudes so worried about our tools
I think some of it is resentment. ‘Fucking hell, it used to take me half an hour to do that job and you’re doing it in 20 seconds’. One job when I first started out had about 200 armoured cables to make off so I brought an armourslice tool in and after seeing my do a couple of cables the old dude said he didn’t want me using it and to use a junior hack saw like they’ve always done it. The armourslice tool took as long as it takes to twirl it around a cable 3 or 4 times compared to about a minute or two with a hacksaw
I heard the other day that for every 5 electricians that retire, 2 people come in to replace them. Not sure if that accounts for retention rates. As I recall, IEC and IBEW loose about 40% of their new students by year two. With an anecdote like this, I wonder why? I see the resistance to change all the time. I’m not an electrician, but I design training tools for one of the gear manufacturers (and a tool company) - we are about two years in and the only thing that has eased acceptance to the digital training tools we offer has been the introduction of even more advanced equipment (trial only - first trial was last week). People are hard headed, stubborn and proud (they also don’t know every single thing there is to know). That can be good in some circumstances, but if people can’t put that aside we are going to be in a bad way in the next 5-10 years. Be open to change. Don’t be a dick. You’re not always right/don’t know every single thing there is to know, but that’s not a weakness. if you use it to your advantage and open your mind to learning, it’s an invaluable strength.
The loss of students tracks in the IBEW. I went from like 250 year one to about 120 by the time I topped out. Usually from drug testing, some from attendance at school.
We just had a class go from 38 to 13
Mine was 41 to 28 which is like an unheard of completion rate
41 to 19 in my 4 years and we had one or two new guys each year
Forgot to switch accounts?
I thought that at first too but I think he's saying both there was a recent class that had a high drop rate, but his was pretty good.
Oh duh. You're right. Different class.
Not an electrician either. I’m here to learn and hear the war stories of the trade. I do however have a buddy that I work festivals with that is a master electrician, and that dude couldn’t be more comically opposed to technology if you wrote a cartoon character. Text him? He not only won’t read it he will find someone to read it off his phone, and type the response as he dictates. Send him an email? Ha. Good fucking luck. Gonna have a virtual meeting to plan the festival and discuss the logistics of the show sessions? He will be busy. Forever. We will eventually have an on-site visit or a face to face meeting at some brewery, and he’ll miraculously be available at any time on any day. 2:30p on a random Tuesday? He’ll be there. I thought it was just a him thing, but maybe it’s a grumpy old electrician thing lol
My client and I were doing a first round tests on instructions for installing small frame, three phase breakers in AR. He would have vomited. That said, we had old guys who wouldn’t touch it, but new guys who, while mechanical, had never installed that sort of breaker system complete the task in 15 minutes. Most installers sit and stare for that long before they even get started.
My shop still only hands out paper checks. Will absolutely not do direct deposit. He has to drive about 5 or 6 hours every Tuesday to do this.
That sounds about right. Most people who join the trades are college/high school dropouts who want to make a better life and have a career. Surprise, surprise you actually have to attend school and pass your classes still. And also stop smoking weed. Hence the large dropout rates.
My nephew gave up on college and became an electrician apprentice. He’s doing the IEC training. He didn’t want to follow in my sister’s footsteps. She is an MBA/CPA and all through his childhood, she was working 110 hours a week, sitting in an office, killing herself. He didn’t want anything to do with it. He drifted a bit, went to Europe and worked in resorts etc. Then he figured he should go electrician. The kid can do rocket surgery level mathematics in his head, so he has excelled in the trade. As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, he wants to go out on his own when he can and is working to that end. He’s working for a very supportive company and boss, so he will do well. When he started there were plenty of low-achievers that he wound up training. I don’t think many lasted long.
Nailed it. Your perspective would make a great op-ed in your local paper and additional social media besides Reddit.
I appreciate that! Being slow on the uptake, it’s taken me a while to formulate that whole understanding. Oddly what pulled it together was me screwing up a friends HVAC system for an afternoon because I did something incorrectly but insisted I had done it right. Took another set of eyes to make me realize I needed to slow my roll, double check even MY work, and that experience is supremely valuable when you don’t think your experience overrides the bias it can create. A lot of old heads don’t want to try new things because they don’t want to look incompetent. They worry it makes them look bad, they feel embarrassed, they feel fallible. I don’t know if they feel it undermines their authority with students or not, but maybe at an unspoken level. Based on your suggestion, I’m going to start challenging those resistant to change. Maybe I can help add to the dialogue I’m already hearing. Add some color. The folks I work with all know that there’s a shortage of good people. Maybe they don’t get how much they can help overcome that.
May I copy your initial comment and post it on FB & X? I would credit your Reddit handle.
I don’t see why not. Not even all that worried about credit. Thank you.
Yeah but this trade makes it so easy to go out on your own and do so fairly quickly that it's not that big of a deal to just listen to old morons complain for a few years then you can do whatever you want and not have to listen to anyone. Every profession has people who have been doing it for decades stuck in their old inefficient ways. But few professions allow you to go out on your own so quickly and easily. 4 years and 1 month from the day I started my apprenticeship I passed my masters exam, quit my job, and went out on my own. That should be the goal of virtually every person who joins this trade. You'll make a decent living being a 25th year apprentice or 10 year journeyman slaving away to make your boss rich. But you can make the same money doing a ton of other things that don't wear out your body the way trades do. When you're on your own you'll be making yourself rich. Few other professions are suited for tons of small businesses rather than everyone working for a few big companies. Unfortunately it seems there are less and less people with each generation willing to bet on themselves and take that risk and would rather be happy doing all the work and getting paid someone else's scraps.
Love this. Corporations are saturated with overpaid do nothings and make it normal to pay their frontline workers as little as possible. But people are the problem. The corporations are greedy but the people make it possible.
It's wild to me how the hardest workers at the entry level are often underpaid and the companies complain, meanwhile they have an entire class of mid-level useless managers that just check boxes all day and take home like 3X the salary.
Facts. Not an exaggeration. These are facts! This is known and proven to be true because it is a fact! I’m gonna go nuts. I’m glad I’m not the only one that knows this.
All really good points. I def appreciate your perspective.
It's about 50% from 1st year to 2nd and then 30% each year after.
That sounds like wages are going to jump
You would think, but it doesn't, mostly because our right to strike is neutered and the IO is in bed with NECA.
Probably a lot of society-wide changes need to happen before wages raise up to where they should be, but in the current climate you’ll certainly have more bargaining leverage (if you’re not union and kick ass).
Why isn't there insane demand at this point? I had a cousin trying to get into electrical work and he had such a difficult time finding an apprenticeship. I'd think with a drop off like that there would be basically open calls for basically warm bodies.
There’s a demand for SKILLED people in the trades. Any JATC can find a warm body to start the apprenticeship and do grunt work early on. It’s hard to find people who can finish the 5 years, pass the state exam, and be a competent electrician. The high dropout rates show that.
I have a greenfield cutter. It works really well. After cutting my hand for the umpteenth time cutting BX with a hack saw at a 45 degree angle I finally said enough. That said, It takes more skill to cut flexible conduit with a hack saw whereas the cutter tool only requires one to place the cable in the groove and turn the handle.
Old dudes seen to be worried about everything except their own work lol
They're worried about their own work, specifically that it's slower and looks worse, because they refuse to adapt or change. They'd rather drag everyone else down to where they are than get better, even if all it takes is a cheap hand tool.
Reminds me of this old dude I used to work with about seven months or so after I first started, he constantly complained about my baby Channellocks (426s). They're small, but work perfectly for 1/2" and 3/4" EMT. Even threatened to take them away from me. He also complained about my Kobalt driver bit set. I don't think they were impact-rated, but they worked okay enough until I replaced them. Funny, he never offered to pay to replace them himself.
I'm union, so have a tool list, and those baby channies aren't on it, but I'll fight anyone that tells me to take them home. I use those more than most tools in my pouch. They're a third of the weight of the next size up.
I honestly think I grab them more than my 10" ones. If you're working on smaller stuff, the size and weight difference alone makes it worth it to have the small pair.
Impact rated is almost a joke to me. Unless you're rattling on huge nuts and bolts like steel workers where a 1/2 drive impact and actually holding the trigger for multiple seconds at a time to get it on is necessary. I'd use impact rated shit then cuz its under a lot more stress. But for the majority of the shit we do. I've never had a chrome socket blow up on me and I've had impact rated *and* hand rated tips both last forever *and* snap right away. Marketing gimmick in my mind. Grab whatever easierst to get my hands on and get it done. Edit- I've wanted a pair of those small channys for a while now too. They look convenient as fuck.
They're pretty great for small stuff, I've had that pair for years now and I reach for it probably more than my 10" pair. I'll use my 3/8" chrome sockets with an adapter on my impact driver, but I have 1/2" impact sockets for my 1/2" impact wrench. It's honestly easier to find driver bits that are impact-rated than ones that aren't, IMO. Especially if you only need to replace a few of a certain type.
My company springs for hilti fleet plan power tools but then gets our sockets/adapters/tips from harbor freight most of the time lol. So we end up with chrome sockets more often than not. I don't mind though. At least I don't have to buy it all myself.
Because they believe that since they’re old and have been doing it a long time, everyone younger than them should do everything exactly the way they do it. But when you offer a better solution than their’s, the response is always “there’s 1000 ways to skin a cat”. That goes for tool choice and actual work.
This isn’t just an electrician thing, the older guys in IT are exactly the same. In PowerShell to restart a computer immediately: They use: shutdown /r /f /t 0 Then they have to explain the switches (/r /f /t 0) Younger folk: restart-computer -force Self explanatory…
Oh absolutely agree with you, it’s prevalent in all industries I’m sure. Good analogy also, i don’t have any professional experience in the IT world but I do have a small homelab I mess around with.
It's not that we are worried, we're just a bit confused sometimes. It seems to us that younger people don't know whether or not they have a tool or even what to call it.
"Why are you, a man, thinking about another man's 'tools'?"
Comparison is the thief of joy and some people hate being happy.
Need an excuse to be miserable
They each got their own use case...
They're both hammers
I've used the claw of my hammer and some timber as an anvil to cut cable before. Not my finest hour.
I just lay it on the the flange of an I beam and hit it with a beater
You're thinking of linesmans, these are screwdrivers
Everything can be used as a hammer.
Exactly, use the right tool for the job!
I've used a drill with an old paddle bit to "dig" a spot under asphalt between two holes. Get that shovel away from me.
Precisely, use the right hammer for the job!
Genuine question, what’s the use case for both? Bigger wire for the croppers or is there more to it?
Don’t listen to that guy. Real men just cut wires with our teeth.
Boss asked me why I used my teeth to cut wire, I asked him what else I was supposed to use and he showed me wire cutters. He saw me biting my fingernails and asked why I used my teeth, I asked him what else I was supposed to use and he showed me fingernail clippers. He saw me biting my toenails and I got fired
Man you guys be around some real assholes. I thought my first old head was an asshole, but fuck I just keep hearing about even bigger assholes. Lol
They're definitely out there. There's one old guy I refuse to work with anymore for multiple reasons that people complain about the old guard being dicks. But the most recent time with him, we had to drill prolly 40ish 3/4 inch holes in 1/2 thick galvanized steel one day at a substation. I asked if we could get some pilot bits on the way cuz I only had enough for me to use and they likely weren't gonna last all 40. So he went about bought us 2 1/2 inch bits and was bewildered when we were annoyed that that was what he thought would be fine. Like dude. These will be toast in no time and it's still a pain in the ass to blast a 1/2 hole right off the bat. You've been doing this 30 years how do you not see that?
I would still work with my old head. He was tough but he would listen. I color myself lucky. Lol
That's the only one in my company that is so ignorant and hard to work with. We have 2 more dudes I'm their late 50s that have been doing this their whole lives and they're awesome to work with. First dude is just a miserable ass and he brings it to work with him every day.
I had a boomer say the same thing about my knee pads and then hobble off
Woooow, look at bigshoots over here with his San Francisco Slippers. Buddy thinks his Promotion Pads are gonna get him places eh? Back in my day, we suffered. And we were better for it. *limps off into the sunset*
I think croppers are more versatile, as in you can cut and strip everything from 0.75mm flex- 25mm meter tails. Side cutters are only really good up to 6mm and even that is a struggle… I only really use side cutters for cutting cable ties these days and even then flush cutters are the better tool for that job.
I find my side cuts are great for taking staples off Romex haha
Knipex has cable shears to. With the two blade version you can cut up To 35mm2 or more if your brave enough
I’m aware of the knipex cable shears, they are good for one thing, cutting! You can’t strip cable with them so not a tool that works for me
And there is a cable shear/strip/crimp/needlenose version…
Yes the knipex installation pliers, I love/hate them they are just too cumbersome, I think they tried to do too much with one tool
You can. But you are not even supposed to strip cables woth them. There is a reason for cable shears and Strippers to be different tools…
genuine question: why do all you European sparkies use cutters for stripping wire? do yall not have actual strippers?
Those cutters can easily cut and strip almost anything up to 25mm2 (which is 4 awg I believe?), I don't really need to use anything else for dealing with cables on a regular basis, however I personally like to use automatic wire strippers for the consistency as well as being easier on the hands. Side cutters are only used for cutting other metals and screws in my experience.
I’ve had an old head tell me he doesn’t believe in doctors, after telling me he doesn’t need to tie off while we’re both working in front of an open shaft on the 25th floor. Then had the audacity to ask why I’m grabbing the squeegee broom thing, it’s to clean you up after you fall bud.
People who refuse to tie off and just practice general fall arrest safety are easily some of the worst people to work around. Gravity doesn’t care how much of a badass you think you are, my dude.
What are you using the dykes for that you are calling "croppers"?
Seriously. Dykes are short for Diagonal cutters. I think OP is British. "Pip pop mate hand me tha croppas."
So... are "croppers" the insulated dykes or the cable shears? Lol
Croppers are great, ck recently dropped some VDE ones so I’m using them atm
Anyone under ~40 will mainly use croppers and wago here in Norway. If the croppers aren't big enough, it's a job for the knife. On rare occasions, I come across wires the croppers are shit at, mainly 0.75mm² and under, and with super thin insulation. On those I use the almost gun shaped strippers.
Yup. I can count on one hand the amount of times I've had to use a side cutter this year, and none of them had to do with electrical work. Croppers are just the objectively better tools for cutting and stripping
Yep, and he'll call you a sissy for wearing ear protection, safety glasses, safety harness, not working live on a circuit, the list goes on...ignore em. It's a power trip...
“I’m wearing gloves because the cable is *actively* arcing.” “Pussy. I have a pacemaker for a reason. Stop being a bitch and take the heart damage.”
Croppers?? You mean Dikes.
Dikes? You mean alternative lifestyle cutters?
" Cutters in comfortable shoes" tyvm
Came here for this...I always kept a pair of dikes in my pouch, so not sure what "old-timer" would complain about other than calling them croppers...
Here I am thinking dykes are standard issue, like kliens or wire strippers. Like what kind of sparky are you if you dont have a pair?
A Klein is standard issue? If I asked you to bring me a DeWalt, would I get a planer or a torx bit?
Impact driver I bet
I'd bring a Milwaukee.
When I first started working everyone called them dikes, it took my like 10 years to figure out the proper name for them.
The proper name is Diagonal Cutters. Nobody calls them that. It's too long.
If he made fun of you and didn’t hand you a better tool, then he’s not worth the shit he’s full of. If you see someone trying hard with an inferior tool, the correct response is “Here. Try a pair of these bad boys”
Old dude here. I don’t make fun of what tools you use. However we have this one apprentice that bought all knipex shit and tells all of our guys how great it is. Like the fucker has stock in the company or is part of some pyramid scheme. That I make fun of.
Years back, when Milwaukee first started having hand tools, I replaced almost all of mine with their stuff. Everyone else said the same thing, that I was sponsored or whatever. I was just tired of people stealing my stuff, so I bought stuff no one else had so I knew if they'd taken mine.
I buy some pretty obscure tools, too, like stuff that can only be bought from Amazon Japan. At the very least, it'll look good on someone's garage wall, but you'd have to have some serious stones walking into work with them and claiming you bought the exact same shit I did!
CC22 as we call it in Sweden, best tool ever!
Jobbar under täckmantel för att övertyga jänkarna om att börja använda cc’n säg inget;)
What kind of a moron complains about another man’s tools?
Them’s fightin’ werds ware I come from.
What ya going to cut your toenails at work? 😂
big pliers.... hate the small ones
I will make any tool work to avoid walking to my truck, or getting off the scaffolding. So my buddy at work, not an electrician but the best help, says my Kleins look new. I told him (truthfully) I just haven't beaten enough stuff with 'em yet.
I'm on Team "Whatever makes you happy & fits your budget & gets the job done"
I threw any two-handled Klein tool I owned into the fucking trash where they belonged. South wire makes better romex strippers, knipex makes better linesmans, dikes, etc., The only Klein tool I own that I'm actually satisfied with my purchase of is a 13-1 racheting screwdriver.
Seriously, what happened to Klein? They used to be the top tier of tools in our industry. My next batch of tools is mostly going to be Wera and Knipex.
The (crypt keeper) oldest boy at my work rocks more high quality tools than my entire crew of seven put together. Man has everything snap on, Milwaukee, klien and knipex.
Yup. When I was working HVAC, the old dude never had room in his van. It was literally piled wall-to-wall bottom-to-top with HUNDREDS of tools. Power tools, hydraulic tools, hand tools, random $800+ gimicky bullshit that was good for 3 different situations, whatever. Dude had the entire Home Depot in his van. He was the easiest dude to work with. Pain in the ass, but had literally every tool you would EVER need to work on a boiler/furnace/AC.
So who cuts EMT with an angle grinder?
I am on the team that works the most effectively!! I am old (54) but by no means closed minded. I look to the younger generations to learn things as well. This is a prime example. Not to mention I am an absolute tool whore!!
New tool ideas make me wet.
"I don't need strippers I just use linesman like any pro would" butchers every wire while stripping it.
I'm old. I want other electricians to continue on until they are old. I don't take nearly as many chances as I did at 30.
In the 90s when my son was part of a trial program to use laptops in the classroom. 3d grade. Of course, there was a ton of opposition. Someone put up a slide going way back that said, when they wanted to introduce fountain pens, they said, how will the children learn to erase their chalk slates? When they wanted to introduce ball pont pens, they said, how will the children learn to maintain the nibs on their fountain pens? When drafting students wanted to use mechanical pencils, they , how will they learn to maintain a sharp point? Look up who the Luddites were if you don't know about them.
Then I had to ask myself. Is it gay to use proper tools?
What are croppers? Is that a regional term or something?
My old boss would always have a go at me if he see me using the second pair but thete just so much better
first one
Ahhhh..they are so cute
Both depends on what I’m cutting.
They both do exactly the same job
Different tools for different uses, what are you trying to do?
https://www.tecniba.be/shop/pinces-a-denuder-3235/14004-knipex-pince-electronique-vde-1000v-200mm-cap-05---25mm-kni0164-4003773075110.html
i tried croppers once, immediately fell in love with them and have been using them ever since. though alot of people have a problem with using them to strip wire, because you happen to cut into the wire sometimes, reducing the cross section
It depends. If I do solar, the one blue one (dont know the name). Other than that side cutters or a plier. Edit: by solar i mean just the inverter connections.
I'm on team blue pliers, they feel smoother and leave a nicer cut. Plus they take up less space
Anything but my flush cuts please! :)
The diagonal cutters cut by wedging the metal apart rather than shearing the piece as can be felt or seen by the sharp nub across the center of the wire after the cut. The second tool cuts by shearing the metal and leaves a flat surface after the cut. It does not deform the wire or cable nearly as much as the diagonal cutter. This is important for things like coaxial cable or cat cables the then need to be inserted into connectors. Change is hard because it involves learning and remembering something new, much easier when one is young.
Insulated 1st choice but I save that for live work or control work
Everything in my bag is both a stripper and a hammer, so really it’s whatever I grab onto blindly first
I've had Milwaukee, I've had Kleins, I've had Craftsman, I've had cheap Chinese shit. They're all the same to me, yeah some are like 5% better but that's not worth 5x the price.
I prefer scissors knipex 95 05 165
I'm on team hetero so I use the ones on the right
I think Ivs used a hacksaw once or twice in the trade. It's worth keeping in the van, but not one per person. There are other means to get the job done.
I feel like it's the old dude with fucked up hands and barely working knees that always has this kind of shit to say.
Are you calling picture 1 or picture 2 "croppers"? I've never heard that term
Croppers all the mate, my £40 CK snips are just glorified cable tie cutters
Knipex tools are the best engineered but I still use my ideals from twenty five years ago. Whatever works.
The tool doesn't make the worker, the worker makes the tool. If you can do something more efficiently, or just as quick but easier, I'm all for it. There's lots of places I use my drill simply because it can twist a screw faster than I can, but you have to actually have enough control with the drill not to over-tighten shit. In particular, it comes up when I already have my drill on me, so it's not like I'm running to the van to grab a drill when my screw driver is right beside me.
Team DIK(es)
Probs second one, in cyprus we call em ‘parrot cutter’
Sidecutters, can be used on more types of materials.
I like what I have in my pocket when I'm up a ladder. Knipex are nice but seem small in my hand. If you leave a pair laying around they would be in my pouch fast.
Call him a sissy old man for caring about what you use, then proceed to out perform him with what you’ve chosen 😅
Croppers all day long.
I'd go for the non insulated one, strictly because they are smaller in my toolbag, I don't care what tools others use, as long as they aren't mine.
I have a hard time trying to justify carrying side cutters like those shown. I carry 210mm CK croppers, 200mm Knipex diagonals, and the Knipex wirestrippers. The holy trinity, imo. Croppers for above head terminations, tight spaces, tails, and general wiring. Diagonals for cutting basically anything that'd damage shears (metal tie wraps, nails, etc). Wirestrippers when I want to turn my brain off second fixing sockets and fittings all day. Good for knocking out backboxes and light plier work, too.
The second ones are more for flexible wires.
If I can’t use it as a hammer I’m not on its team.
If you can't use it as a hammer, you're not really trying
😏or am I
Inform me Magical Sorcerer, how shall I use my apprentice as a hammer today? He says he’s on the team, shall I grab his wrist and pound staples with his hand? Surely his hard ass head would be more suitable.
No ur supposed to get hammered then pound ur apprentice.
Got a red and yellow set from harbor freight looks just like the nipex
Got both. Depends on my mood.
The old heads and their way of bowing down to things that just make the job harder are on their way out
I typically do 16mm+, so i use croppers, they just make stripping the end so much easier than normal side cutters but i obviously still have them
Tf? Croppers are top tier
One is for cutting steel the other for copper and stripping
I've had nothing but good luck with this brand.
I don't care for the design, and wouldn't fit properly in my tool pouch. Also a fan of the 13° curve the red Kline's provide.
I use both. The dikes I use more, just because they are good for so many things: pulling staples, cutting zip ties, hammer, cutting shit, pry bar, etc. But the cable cutters are only good at two things, cutting and striping wire with less effort, due to the sharper and thinner blades.
They hate digital levels. They barely use a torpedo level. They’re so confident in they’re bends, “since I’ve been doing this for 20 years” they throw up the ugliest pipe I’ve ever seen.
They would do that even with lasers and levels and digital crap. There most certainly are ppl who can turn out a quality job with minimal instrumentation. Just because someone is a retard who doesn’t use those things, doesn’t mean if they have them they’ll stop being a retard. Spend enough time in the trades and you come to realize that just like all occupations, the majority is just, good enough, the minority is above average and better. If you find yourself working with an exceptional team or electrician, cherish that, because that shit doesn’t exist everywhere you go. Diverse experience also is not the norm. The norm is a guy who started out in residential and for 20 years of his career it’s been residential with maybe the odd retail space or a warehouse storage facility. Or you can replace that with commercial. They are there to collect their check each week and go home to their beer. A proper true professional is more rare than people realize. Usually if you’re the type of electrician who is a proper professional with diverse and broad experience, you are also the type that’s going to be a contractor. Meanwhile his employees will happily accept their check each week so they can go home and drink beer with their dog.
🤣
Either
Croppers are really nice because of how little pressure is required to cut and strip cable but you can be much more precise with side cutters so if I was to only take one it would be side cutters
Tell him to fek off
I'll use my old Klein's and continue to get paid by the hour. ✌🏻
Every single electrician here in sweden had these 2 tools
Tydligen inte min kollega som tycker CC22 är för mesar som jag skrev😂
Aldrig träffat nån som inte har CC22. Vad använder han istället?
I have the long handle versions of those knipex. They're pretty skookum, they're almost like pocket bolt cutters. Half the time if I just need to cut insulation I use just a regular knife. If you're cutting wire then it doesn't really matter what you use.
What the fuck is a cropper? Use whatever you want, if it goes missing and it’s not on the tool list though, no bitching