In keeping with my pliers review yesterday, I thought it would be fitting to do a review on “Tool Magic Rubber Coating” that I bought from Fire Mountain Gems. This tool is to help prevent marks on your metal. Since I didn’t buy pliers that came with the plastic guards, I figured I’d try this out.
The instructions are very simple and very easy to follow.
Stir the mixture
Dip the pliers
SLOWLY ( make sure you pull it out slowly or you’ll end up with a clump at the tip) pull the pliers out
Let dry
And use
Luckily it doesn’t take much to cover the pliers because after a couple of uses, it starts to wear off.
When that does happen, just use your thumbnail and peel it off and recover.
It does like to clump up, so make sure you stir it before each time you use it.
All in all, I think this is a decent alternative to the more expensive guards. If you don’t have the right size guards, they are useless anyways, so this works great. It does help prevent marring on your metals, so that’s a BIG plus. The only drawback is the need to reapply.
Because of it coming off so easily, I give it a neutral review.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Try cutting a small groove in the tip of your square jaw pliers to grasp the rings more securely. If the groove is polished well, it doesn’t leave scratches or nicks on the rings. I put a series of photos and instructions on the web site about a week ago to show the steps for cutting the grooves.
Another way to provide a temporary coating is to put a length of 1/8 dia tubing over each jaw of the pliers. It is a lot tougher than a dip, but it does increase the radius of the plier jaws considerably.
Hope this helps.
I haven’t gotten into Chainmaille, but it’s something I’d like to learn for sure. I have also noticed that if I try too hard to manipulate the wire, I end up getting more ware on the coating. The more annealed the wire is, the longer the coating lasts.
Stay tuned, more reviews to come! 🙂
Thanks for taking time to do a review! I have found that if I slowly dip two times, I can do half a day of chainmaille before mine starts to peel off. You know you spend way too much time on chainmaille when you have two sets of pliers ready and dipped at all times 🙂 I have never dipped my round pliers since they don’t ding up my wire.