Higher leverage at Channellock

Las Vegas — Meadville, Pa.-based Channellock introduced a new 8-inch high-leverage center cutting plier that increases its cutting power.

A demonstration here at the National Hardware Show offered a taste-test of plier performance, highlighting the ease with which the center-cut plier cuts through a wire. The company's XLT — extreme leverage technology — has been bolstered in the product design with a precision-machined center cut action.

The new plier also includes a slimmer, lighter and better-balanced handle underneath the traditional Channellock Blue grips. And the cutting edges of the tool are heat treated for high performance.

Also at the Channellock booth — which itself was designed as an homage to the company's Meadville factory, where the pliers are made — the company displayed a variety of innovations, from a multi-purpose, reversible-jaw tongue-and-grove adjustable plier to a new "Little Champ" precision pliers.