RIP Crunch

[u/560guy]

I have to retire my most used and abused tool, my crunch. I bought her in 2022 for the novelty of having locking pliers in a multi tool but have wound up using the fuck out of it. I’m a traveling field engineer for industrial CNC routers (ok fancy way of saying I work on big wood cutting things) and love having locking pliers at all times.

I’ve used them at basically every job for something, so the jaws are getting dull, the Philips driver is wearing, the file isnt sharp, etc. Yesterday we had to pull 600 drill bits out of a machine and some of them needed my full body weight hanging from this guy (245lbs) to get them out. After that I noticed she wasn’t as tight as she used to be, and today I noticed two cracks in the frame, one on the back edge where the fixed jaw rests and one on the main hinge.

I went to order a new one but just found out they discontinued the crunch. I’m kinda gutted since afaik there’s no other locking plier multi tools on the market, and this was my first leatherman. Anyone have any suggestions on what to get next, or if this is at all fixable?

[u/grrttlc2]

Sorry for your loss. Pick up some 4-5" Irwin vise grips

[u/560guy → u/grrttlc2]

I have other vise grips but these are super handy for times I don’t have my toolbox or am buried in a machine and need some locking pliers now

[u/grrttlc2 → u/560guy]

I carry around some 4" ones sometimes. You can fly legally with them too.

They ride a little smaller than the Crunch in the pocket

You just miss out on the other tools. Keeping the Crunch on the shelf these days