A journeyman told me to stop using my linesman's as a hammer, changed my whole panel rough-in

Last month I was trimming out a panel in a remodel over in Trenton and this old journeyman walked by while I was seating a stubborn EMT connector with my linesman's. He just said, "you're gonna mushroom that head and then it won't grip wire for shit." I switched to a small dead-blow hammer for connectors and kept the linesman's for cutting and twisting only. Three weeks later I noticed my terminations are way more consistent and I'm not replacing worn pliers every two months. Has anyone else had to break that habit after years of doing it the lazy way?

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1 Comment

jennybailey17d ago

Quit babying your tools and just carry a dead-blow if it bugs you, but a few whacks on a connector never killed a pair of linesman's in my book. Sounds more like you got in your own head than the pliers were the problem.