Are Japaneese tools really that good

What I want to talk today about is Japanese tools. I mean, today, some of the best tools in the world are actually made in Japan. The steel, just the quality of the workmanship is unbelievable. So, let's get into it a little bit. You know, when I was, I mean, I'm in my mid-60s now. When I was a kid, And you told another kid who had just bought a new toy or his parents gave him a new toy. You told him that thing looks like it was made in Japan. That was the worst insult you could give somebody because Japan's manufacturing process was terrible. They made the cheapest products available in the United States. And that was in the early to mid 60s, probably even late 60s. But man, has that turned around. So after World War II, U.S. sent... W. Edwards Deming over to Japan and he was a managing consultant and he was the one that's really been credited with bringing up the quality of the Japanese manufacturing process and different quality control that they have today. So let's get into it a little bit. So I'm going to start out with some pliers. I've got a full line of Japanese tools here. We'll take a look at. Thank This Engineer brand here. The Engineer brand is out of Japan. All these are made in Japan. Now, they have a brand called VamPLIERS that they market you in the United States. From what I see, they're almost identical or they are identical to the Engineer, for but the VamPLIERS cost more, sometimes 20-30% more than the Engineer brand. that. Now, I bought these Engineer brand And screw extraction type pliers. A couple of years ago, you can see the tip there on them. You can see that little area that's got this little groove cut out in the front where you're meant to grab a hold of screws that are stripped out, and you can pull them out. These are some very nice pliers. Uh... They invented these in 2002. Engineer Tools did out of Japan. Now, somebody came up with this patent in 78, but they didn't really... follow through on it. Engineer came out with a new patent in 2002 that everybody's using today. I mean, you know, here's the Knipex TwinGrips. Of course, they have that same type of nut grabbing feature. Work Pro pliers here. This is a Lyman plier. They even have that on their Lyman plier. Uh, and And Fujiya, of course, has come out with these. But these are some very nice pliers by Engineer. I have... I've tested these against the Fujiya, and I'll tell you the truth. I mean, these have cutters on them. You know, they have a little small area here, but they've got some... Look at that. Look how that meets. I mean, the quality in these are unbelievable. And they also have some little grabbing area or crimping area down here. They just have serrations down here. Handles are always this green color. If you get the Vampire, they're red color. Just a very nice set of pliers but I tell you if you're looking for screw extraction pliers it's hard to beat these. This is a Fujiya brand. Of course you've got that same type of tip there as you can see but man so this is a Fujiya Couric and they also make an orange handle that you can get on Amazon too. I got these off Amazon but look at the finish on this from fujia i mean and i look i've done some testing with these against the engineer against the twin grips and uh these fujia came out on top they're small they have little cutters here uh you they got very small serrations on the face of the jaws here but the main thing their main point here making this plier is screw extraction you can tell by that deep groove they've got there and And these things just work great. Uh, so that's the Fujiya screw extraction and a little bit of history on screw extraction, but engineers started it all. And still, these are some fine pliers. Now these are a little bit larger. I typically, if I want screw extraction, I've used these, well, I've used the orange handle type quite a bit, not this one, but, uh, same thing really. Uh, but, uh, I tell you these Fujiya just worked the best to me. Now, next I want to talk about flush cutters. I have got Got various pairs of flush cutters, but again, Fujiya. To me are the best flush cutters on the market today. I mean, look at this. I'm going to show you this. Look at the face on that. Look at the, look how smooth polished that is. These things just, there is no light between these jaws. They operate great. You can see they are high leverage here. Now this particular one's got some crimpers below here, but man, this Fujiya just makes some beautiful pliers. I've got another set here that's about an inch longer. Let's see what these are. Yeah, so these are the 7-inch. These are the 8-inch. Both of these are 8-inch. This one, it seems like maybe it's 8 1⁄4 or so, but these are just some very nice flush cutters here. Of course, you don't want to cut anything, you know, hard with these, no hard steel or anything. But I'll tell you what I did. When I first got these, I was doing a test video, and I cut a nail with these. And you can see, you can see some little mark right here, but they still cut perfect. So these are some tough pliers. I mean, I wouldn't suggest cutting nails with them, of course, because you're not supposed to. But you can see how they're made here. They got that little thin jaw here up top where you actually do your cutting. And most of them from Fujia are like that. These are just some fine flush cutters here. I tell you, Fujia is some of the best in the market. So if you're looking for flush cutters, I would look at the Fujia brand first. They are a little expensive, but you know, these days you get what you pay for. Let's see what's next. Okay, I want to get into some more pliers here. You know, this is a Sonoda brand. Now, these are the six-inch, they call them six-inch linemen. I've got two pair of them here. One has got this little comfort grip. One's just got the dip grip here. These are both, of course, made in Japan. But if you're looking for, like I have this, I have a small bag made just for small tools, you know, for little small projects. And I've got this in there. And these things work great. I'll leave a link in the description for all of these, and these aren't that, I mean, you know, they're kind of expensive for the quality you get, but I tell you, Sonata is more of an affordable brand than the Fujia and different type of brands, or Engineer, or Vampire, but they're still very high quality tools. I really like these Sonata pliers. Like I said, these are the six inch lineman. They got cutters down here, and they cut, I mean, they cut with ease. Let's see if I can get this. Let's see how it cuts this. Let's see how it does on this Romex here. 14 gauge Romex. Oh yeah. I mean, it's just for that small a plier, but you can see the, the leverage on this thing. That pivot point is way up near the cutters there. So you're getting some great leverage with these. That's a Sonata six inch lineman plier. And then we'll go to these. Now, these are lineman pliers too. This is a Fujia lineman plier. All I tell you, just a beautiful set of pliers. It's called Zero Black here. They're all blacked out. It's got this like a black chrome finish on it, as you can see. Man, that's a nice set of pliers. right. Now, they're not my favorite pliers for cutting and things like that, but boy, do they look good. I mean, they do cut easy, but I just found that I like the Knipex and the Klein a little bit better than the lineman plier. These particular pair here do have a crimper in them. And I mean, fine set of pliers. This is the best looking lineman plier I've got, bar none. This is a beautiful set of pliers. This is a 9-inch, and man, are they nice. Now on the other end of the spectrum is this. This is the Marvel. These are made in Japan also. It's the MVA-200N and these have the shear cutters on them. Uh, very, I think there's like two companies in Japan that make these shear cutters. And what I have found is, uh, people in Australia love these shear cutters. In fact, I was just in Northern Ireland, uh, Velocity sent us down for a, a retreat there in Northern Ireland. And I was talking to two guys from Australia. They were there. And I asked them, I said, what kind of lineman pliers do you use? And they both said at the same time, Marvel, uh, they just love these shear type cutters And, um... In Australia, you know, by the way, I'm gonna get off topic for a little bit. I was also talking, they started talking about Vegemite. The only thing I know about Vegemite, I think it was a man at work that had a song back in the 80s and 90s, you know, Vegemite sandwich. And I said, really? I said, well, what's it taste like? And they were trying to explain it. And they said, we just can't explain it. You got to try it. So I'm going to go out, buy me a jar of Vegemite. Let me know. If you want me to do a video on me trying Vegemite for the first time, I'll show you what it looks like and I'll try to explain what it tastes like because I have no idea. I've seen it in the stores before, but I have no idea. So leave me a note down there. If you want me to video, I'm going to do it anyway. But if you want me to video it, I'll video it. But anyway, these are the cross. Now you can't, it says here, do not cut steel. And it is, you could tell just really broke in nice. There's no wobble on here at all either. I mean, these are just high. Highly engineered and quality manufactured pliers here. You see it's got cross hatching here on the jaws. And if you look, you can see how it's shaped here. And they do that, of course, because of these cutters here, these shears, you know, have to bypass each other. So you have to, but you see how tight they are. And if you look on most of these other linemen where you've got these crimp type cutters, uh there's a gap there because you don't you know you have to make sure there's a little bit of a gap there to make sure these cutters are cutting properly uh we're on these shear type look at that they're just tight and all these people i talk to say oh well that little gap helps you twist wires i think that's a bunch of bull the only reason they put that gap there is because they want these to make sure they fit tight and if you had these gaps or these jaws up here fitting before these actually clamp down tight you know that's not going to work you then you'll get your light pollution through here and things like that when you when you check a light behind it so uh but i tell you these marble are just unbelievable pliers uh they are expensive though you can go on amazon i'll leave a link on amazon for you go take a look at them anyway in case you want them but you know what i don't find that they cut any easier than these linemen do I thought they would cut a lot easier, but they don't, and I don't know if one reason is the pivot point is low here. It's about, you know, you got about, I don't know, a quarter inch from the top of this pivot to the, you know, up to here, so they're just not high leverage pliers. Maybe if they were high leverage, they would cut a lot easier, but to me, you know, these cut just as Which is easy, so don't think you're gonna get them and they're gonna cut something like Other than what you've already got, because to me, the linemen cut just as good or better. Okay, next is this. Now, this is, I'm just going to go over this real quick. This is the Sonoda. I was doing some plumbing down here, and I had a lot of fixtures put on it. They were all chrome plated fixtures. And, you know, I said, either I can buy the jaws for the Knipex. I bought these pair of pliers here for almost just as cheap as just buying the soft jaws for the Knipex Cobra. So, you know, these are, now, of course, you don't have all of the settings. You got very, You've got a lot fewer settings. I never had a problem finding the one I like. What I like about them is they are spring, you know, you spring activate it. I guess there's an internal spring in here because you can't see a spring anywhere. But these things work great. They're soft jaws, too. They're not that hard plastic. They're soft jaws, and they just work great. And that's Sonoda, I think it's WP300SC-S, Sonoda soft jaws water pump pliers. Now the last little pliers I've got here are these. Now these are the Fujiya. Now I've got the The, um, the, um... Water pump pliers, I've got the Fujiya water pump pliers and the Fujiya pliers wrench. And these things work okay. The pliers wrench, to me, worked fine. The only thing I really don't like about it is it's got this black phosphate finish. You know, instead of that smooth finish that a lot of them have, a chrome finish, or even the steel finish that's smooth, this thing's got that rough, like black phosphate. I don't know. I don't really work that much with these. These are 250 millimeter, which is 10 inches. I don't really work that much with them. Uh, I don't know if you kept them out in the truck. Would they just rust all up? I don't know. Uh, I know I did just do a pliers water pump pliers test and these did not pass on that grip test rig I had. They kept slipping. Uh, these teeth were not as sharp as some of the other ones. You know, these do have opposing teeth. The bottom go this way. The top go this way where you're grabbing. It's supposed to grab a hold of that pipe and let you get some really good force on it. But these just slipped. And there was only, I had 11 paired. I think there were only four that didn't pass. So, and this was one of them. This was the, now this one is the Knipex brand, but it is a Fujiya water pump plier in the black phosphate. I'd stay away from this, but these, I mean, these are fine. Okay, so let's talk about screwdrivers. These are some Japanese screwdrivers I have. Of course, this Vessel, you know, Vessel kind of made famous this ball grip screwdriver. This one, of course, you can change out the blades. I've got another blade here somewhere. Yeah, here's the other blade you know you just interchangeable uh it does keep tight this is a 220w uh vessel screwdriver very nice screwdriver i mean the only thing i don't like about it is it's kind of light you know two really doesn't have any heft to it i like a little bit of heft to a screwdriver um This one now, this one's on a different spectrum here. I'm trying to find a part number here. I can't really find a part number, but this is a vessel. But you can tell it's got a little weight up top because you got this striking cap here. It does have weight. I mean it feels really good, a lot better than the other one does. It's got clear, I guess this is acetate here, some type of a plastic. But they put like a finish on it, a rough pebble finish on it all the way down. So when you're gripping it, your hands are here. You get more grip on it. So I really like this screwdriver here. Let me see if I can find a part number. I think it's 2100. I'll leave a link in the description for it though anyway. Very nice screwdriver here. And this one here, well let me keep with the vessels first. This is the Vessel Cushion Grip, or Gel Grip, they call it. It's got this soft rubber, and inside rubber, it's got little pockets of gel, gelatin, or gel. And it's very soft feeling. I mean, these, to me, are the most comfortable handles that I've got, because they just, it's all grippy. You've got flutes in here, and as you can tell, you get pressed down you got this gel you see it says gel here right here on this label here so uh man these are nice it's the vessel gel grip gel cushion grip screwdrivers I don't very nice and also uh this one now this one is the is the vessel 900. know if Yeah. This one is also called Megadora. They call this one, I've probably heard of Megadora. you can It's got this nice shaft here. You can see the knurling they put on the shaft here. hear me And this handle here has got these little holes cut in them for extra grip. Plus, you know, or not. this black plastic here where you can really get a good grip on it. You see the tip, it's got some kind of a laser etching, not a laser etching, but little grooves cut in that tip. I don't know if you can see that or not, but you put a number two screw on there and I mean, it holds it. It holds it tight. You could even pick up the screwdriver with this just by the screw. I mean, it holds it tight. So, uh, this is without a doubt, the most grippiest screwdriver that I've got is the Vessel, uh, Megadora 900. I'll leave a link in description for this one too. You can check it out if you want to. Uh, very nice, very nice screwdriver. Then I got some ratcheting screwdriver here. Now, this is the Anex 397 Quick Ball 72, they call it. Fine ratchet. Listen to this. Just a very fine ratchet on this thing. You got your lever here for forward and reverse. You go in the middle, you can lock it down and just pull out. They are interchangeable. You can put different blades in here. Let's see if this other vessel blade will fit in there. Yeah, it fits in great. It's tight. So I think any quarter-inch shank you could probably put in here. I tell you, I'm impressed with this Anex, though, and it's not that expensive. I mean, these are kind of budget Japanese ratcheting screwdrivers. I will check that out. It's the Anex 397. Now, these are the Vessel ball grip electric screwdrivers. One of them is high speed, and one of them is high torque. Anyway, you can tell which one's high speed as soon as you turn it on. You see how fast that is? This thing's a lot faster. So this one has more, this one's got less torque than this one does. Although none of them really have a lot of torque. These vessels are not known for their torque. But they are very comfortable to use. You know, when you get through, you can just use them like a regular screwdriver. Really like any four-volt screwdriver is you could do that with, though. But these are very, very comfortable. The only thing I don't like about them is... you know just no torque at all if you have it if you have to put any type of torque on it you got to go to something else i wonder if i wonder if the new ones have Type-C because this is the like USB mini um which i don't like uh but that that tells you how much i use i forgot what kind of ports on here i've been using this Amazon Basics and uh more lately the one i really What I really like is that new Fantic they come out with. But anyway, that is the Vessel, so these are pretty nice screwdrivers. Now, let's get into something else here. This is a Fujiya adjustable wrench. It's the FLA32-BG. You can see it's got this skeletonized handle here. Really nice handle. Just smooth as butter coming out, and look how wide you go. And the teeth are really, or the jaws here are really long on it too. And man, it's just easy to move and look. You hardly get any movement on here. These things are tight. I really like this. This is my favorite right now adjustable wrench, even though I don't use them that much anymore because I got the pliers wrench, but still I keep this one in the bag because you just never know. This thing is very nice, very lightweight. It's got that black phosphate finish. I'm not usually a fan of that, but it works on this tool here. So that is the Fujiya adjustable eight inch wrench. And then we got some bits here. This is the vessel impact ball set, right? So you push this down and these pop up. Let me do that again. Let me show you how that works. See these just pop up, the top comes open, and you got these bits here. This is the ball grip, you can see that, they call that the impact ball here. This is where you get most of your strength from, supposedly, and the bit is in that ball there. Very nice bits though, you got a full set of them here. And on the bottom, back in, on the bottom here, when you close it, you got this little magnetic bit holder here, you can see here. Pretty nice little set here. I think I got this off. I think I got it off Amazon. It may have came with a tool. I don't remember, but supposedly 30 times more, 30 times stronger or tougher than other bits. And they are impact rated, as you can see here. Then I got this. These are the three inch bits, vessel bits, as you can see. You could take this out. This is a, this is a, Double-ended bit here But you see here you just clip it on your you clip it on your tool bag You pull out whatever you want. These still have that little ball torsion Uh... Little ball torsion zone there they call it and this thing here It's magnetic also and it just stays right in here like this This is the vessel bit holder here. I don't, I don't really like, I mean, I like it, but to me, it's just too big. I mean, you know, they, they shape them like, of course, like the round, like these, uh, handles are here. It's just too big to me, but man, I tell you, it is comfortable. The good thing about it is you can put a bit in here and you basically have a little stubby because you can, this thing's so big, you can get some torque on it, you know? Uh, so it's pretty nice in that aspect. If you, if you don't mind, uh, you know, a little bit bigger bit handle, Now, this is a Japanese nail set. It's actually called the Kokuri. Well, the name brand, I bought this. It's like $15 on Amazon. It's the Kokuri brand. You can see, you can't read, it's just Japanese writing right here, but I love this because it is short little area here. Now, I use a lot of six penny nails when I'm setting doors and things like that, and I can just get in there with a hammer and I can put it right on that nail. Uh, also they have a little smaller end on this side. If you want to use a little smaller, you know, smaller end for smaller nails and you could hit it here. Uh, I really like this and you can also use for prying or really whatever you want it for. But I typically just keep it in my bag as a nail set. I keep this in my finished carpentry bag. Uh, what I also keep in there is this, this is the Shinto, uh, Japanese wood rasp. As you can see this, this design here is Now, typically with wood rasp, You got to have a wire brush because you got to clean it out because all the little teeth get clogged with sawdust. That doesn't happen with these. You got all these little openings here and this side is coarse. This side is fine. But man, you can just put your hand on there and rub it, you know, get going with it and really take off some wood with this Shinto. These things are awesome. Now, I don't know if Shinto is the only one that makes them, but that's the brand that I have and I use it all the time. I really like this Shinto wood rasp. Another thing I've got is this. This is the Engineer brand shears. Now, I kept hearing how everybody loved these Engineer shears, and I got them in, and I tell you, I mean, they're okay, but to me... They're nothing like these. I mean, I would much rather have these Knipex, and these things are expensive. I think they're about the same price as a Knipex. Why would you get Engineer when you can get Knipex, you know, where you can cut almost anything with these? They have these little saw teeth here. I have no idea what this is for. Somebody will probably, I'm sure, tell me what it's for. It feels like it's got a little edge on it. I don't know if it's for wire stripping. I tried to strip wire with it. It didn't work. Um, so I don't know, maybe you could tell me, uh, I do like this little sheath here. It's pretty cool, but I'm not impressed with the shears that much. Uh, I just assumed, you know, go with the Knipex here. All right, guys. So that's it. That's most of the Japanese tools I have. If you guys know something that you want me to look at or do a review on, please let me know because I'm looking for them. Uh, I really liked these Japanese tool, quality steel, quality manufacturing, man, they've come a long way. And I appreciate you guys watching this. Please subscribe to the channel if you don't mind. I really, really appreciate it. And we'll see you on the next one.