Best Tweezers etc

[Harb]

So where is everyone buying there best quality hand tools from....ie....tweezers etc etc.....I am sick of low quality crap and want to just but the best made stuff

[D3f1ant]

Ideal-Tek.
I have a lot of different ones but if I had to pick just one for general purpose smt assembling SM108 are nice and versatile.

[julian1]

I have a vintage set of swiss/german watchmaker's tweezers that I quite like. Forged and machined and probably fifty years old. They come up on ebay from time to time.

[Harb]

I will have a look around.........I had some great old ones but they have been lost over the years and in recent times the newer stuff is just rubbish......

[amspire]

The last lot I got were some assorted Vetus Tweezers:

http://www.vetustweezers.com

But I didn't get them from that site - they are Chinese made and are very cheap when you buy them from China (ebay, Aliexpress, etc).

For example:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Freeshipping-8pcs-lot-Different-size-Vetus-ESD-Tweezers-Tweezer/839661186.html

or carbon fibre tips:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1set-8pcs-Vetus-ESD-Tweezers-Interchangeable-head-antistatic-carbon-fiber-forceps-head-ESD-259-259A-242/32576963392.html

I wouldn't call them the top quality, but they are actually pretty nice to use. I ordered the plain stainless steel ones but they accidentally sent the ESD coated ones instead. I decided I liked them, so no problem. They are very usable, but at the price, also disposable. You can buy them individually or in sets. At the price, you can have a good set for $10 easily.

I use the ESD-13 a fair bit - these have thin broad tips and you can get a very strong grip on SMD parts.

[janoc]

The last lot I got were some assorted Vetus Tweezers:

http://www.vetustweezers.com

But I didn't get them from that site - they are Chinese made and are very cheap when you buy them from China (ebay, Aliexpress, etc).

For example:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Freeshipping-8pcs-lot-Different-size-Vetus-ESD-Tweezers-Tweezer/839661186.html

or carbon fibre tips:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1set-8pcs-Vetus-ESD-Tweezers-Interchangeable-head-antistatic-carbon-fiber-forceps-head-ESD-259-259A-242/32576963392.html

I wouldn't call them the top quality, but they are actually pretty nice to use. I ordered the plain stainless steel ones but they accidentally sent the ESD coated ones instead. I decided I liked them, so no problem. They are very usable, but at the price, also disposable. You can buy them individually or in sets. At the price, you can have a good set for $10 easily.

I use the ESD-13 a fair bit - these have thin broad tips and you can get a very strong grip on SMD parts.

Do the tips of these tweezers bend out of shape over time?

I had that problem with cheap tweezers - the sharp pointed ones can become useless over time because the tips don't touch properly anymore and if you try to straighten then out, you are risking breaking the tip off completely.

I have also bought a pair of titanium tweezers for that reason - those don't bend but they are also fairly "weak", not as "springy" as the normal steel ones, so they feel weird to use and it is difficult to apply much force with them.

For SMD work the best tweezers I have found so far are a Pros'Kit pair with L-shaped "foot" at the end of the tip (straight tip but the end has a little "foot"). That works well for grabbing things like SMD passives by the sides.

[nctnico]

So where is everyone buying there best quality hand tools from....ie....tweezers etc etc.....I am sick of low quality crap and want to just but the best made stuff

I have a couple of Erem tweezers. I'm using the 7-SA shape the most for SMT and even with some abuse it is still perfect. Not cheap but well worth the money.

[rob77]

i'm very happy with Vetus ESD-14 and ESD-15. don't buy them on ebay or from china - those are fake. i bought mine in a local brick-and-mortar shop, and for the sake of curiosity i bough few fakes from china.. while the fakes are usable, they are still much worse than the real deal.

[amspire]

Do the tips of these tweezers bend out of shape over time?

Many of these tweezers have fine points, so it certainly is possible to bend the tips, but it is also possible with all the tweezers to hold smd parts very firmly without damaging the tips.

Just did a test by putting the ESD-15 tweezers sideways on a scale. Applying a force between the fingers of 1.6kg is fine. I didn't go to the point of damaging the tweezers so that is well below the point at which the tips would bend. With the ESD-13 tweezers, I could comfortably apply 3kg of pressure without the risk if tip deformation. This tip is still thin enough to get into small spaces and the rounded profile makes it handle small objects easily. They work fine if the object is not centred.

There is no sign of scissoring in these tweezers, so when you apply a fair bit of force, there is no twisting evident.

Now I do have other tweezers with stronger tip profiles that are much more likely to last 30 years then the fine tip models, so all I can say is that if these are looked after, they keep working fine. The HRC40 Stainless steel seems to be a good compromise of strength and flexibility. At the price, I can afford to buy spares. The ones I purchased were:

1 x ESD-15 Curved Tip (250G closing force)
1 x ESD-13 Broad Tip (250G closing force)
3 x ESD-14 Fine Tipped Broad body  (190g closing force - The fingers are only about 33mm from the tip)
1 x ESD-12 Normal sized Fine Tip (300g closing force - The fingers as 50mm from the tip)

I have only been using them about 4 months and have no damage yet.

[amspire]

i'm very happy with Vetus ESD-14 and ESD-15. don't buy them on ebay or from china - those are fake. i bought mine in a local brick-and-mortar shop, and for the sake of curiosity i bough few fakes from china.. while the fakes are usable, they are still much worse than the real deal.

I was wondering about that.

I gather all the Vetus tweezers are Chinese (even if they claim "Swiss-type" quality) so I am not sure how to tell if my Chinese one are are less genuine then yours.

Any chance of showing the difference between them - as a guide to us?

I think this may be the manufacturer, even if some of the tweezers have "SWITZERLAND STANDARD" engraved on the tweezers.

http://www.peakwin.com/english/eqipment.html
 

[eliocor]

As others, I suggest you to buy tweezers made by Lindstrom.
Just to look at their quality, please check the pictures I posted in this thread: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/buysellwanted/on-ebay-lindstrom-tweezers/

[Someone]

The last lot I got were some assorted Vetus Tweezers:
http://www.vetustweezers.com...
I wouldn't call them the top quality, but they are actually pretty nice to use. I ordered the plain stainless steel ones but they accidentally sent the ESD coated ones instead. I decided I liked them, so no problem. They are very usable, but at the price, also disposable. You can buy them individually or in sets. At the price, you can have a good set for $10 easily.

I use the ESD-13 a fair bit - these have thin broad tips and you can get a very strong grip on SMD parts.

Do the tips of these tweezers bend out of shape over time?

I had that problem with cheap tweezers - the sharp pointed ones can become useless over time because the tips don't touch properly anymore and if you try to straighten then out, you are risking breaking the tip off completely.

I have also bought a pair of titanium tweezers for that reason - those don't bend but they are also fairly "weak", not as "springy" as the normal steel ones, so they feel weird to use and it is difficult to apply much force with them.

For SMD work the best tweezers I have found so far are a Pros'Kit pair with L-shaped "foot" at the end of the tip (straight tip but the end has a little "foot"). That works well for grabbing things like SMD passives by the sides.

Its a multi faceted issue, there is no one single characteristic that makes a strong tweezer but many necessary conditions. Even taking a good quality design for a strong tips stainless pattern 00:
https://www.dumonttweezers.com/Tweezer/Tweezer/446
another manufacturer will make many different versions similar but not the same:
http://www.aventools.com/product/accu-tek-tweezers-oo-sa/
http://www.aventools.com/product/technik-tweezers-oo-sa/
http://www.aventools.com/product/e-z-pik-tweezers/
When you look at all of these side by side the differences are enormous, not clearly visible in the picture are the thickness of the blades and how close they approach the tips. The closing action of the tips varies from a clean parallel approach where you can pickup a hair anywhere from the tip backwards 1cm or so, to tweezers that just touch at the point of the tip and no more. This is before you consider that "stainless steel" is a very broad term that applies to a lot of different alloys which span a huge range of strengths and characteristics:
https://www.dumonttweezers.com/Home/Alloys

But the simple part is, if you're bending tips then you've exceeded the strength of the tool. Tweezers are for handling fine parts, not using a levers, screw drivers, or spanners (even though the toughest can do these things fine) so you should lean to use appropriate tools within their capabilities. The finest tips look all well and good but they offer few advantages for electronics when you can handle 0603 (0201 imperial) parts with a "heavy duty strong blades tapering to a regular strong point" (00 pattern). There are a very wide range of styles available but as above there is little consistency in the final result, it pays to actually touch and feel a range of products before settling on a long term choice:
http://www.aventools.com/product-category/hand-tools/tweezers-quick-test-tweezers/precision-tweezers/
https://www.dumonttweezers.com/Tweezer/TweezerStyleList/31

[rob77]

i'm very happy with Vetus ESD-14 and ESD-15. don't buy them on ebay or from china - those are fake. i bought mine in a local brick-and-mortar shop, and for the sake of curiosity i bough few fakes from china.. while the fakes are usable, they are still much worse than the real deal.

I was wondering about that.

I gather all the Vetus tweezers are Chinese (even if they claim "Swiss-type" quality) so I am not sure how to tell if my Chinese one are are less genuine then yours.

Any chance of showing the difference between them - as a guide to us?

I think this may be the manufacturer, even if some of the tweezers have "SWITZERLAND STANDARD" engraved on the tweezers.

http://www.peakwin.com/english/eqipment.html

some of the "fake" ones i have have visible asymmetry in them and the tip tends to bend a little under bigger force. some of them have smeared marking (looks like messed up screen print, possibly a reject from production ? ) otherwise can't tell the difference - tips perfectly symmetric and behaves nicely under higher force applied. and all of them from different sources have the marking printed by a different font - so they're definitely not coming from a single manufacturer.

[mmagin]

My nice tweezers I got recently as a gift (I was feeling cheap but my wonderful parents were like "what do you want for Christmas?"): Aven 18069TS angled tip, quite well made, doesn't have a very strong springyness, as commented above with titanium.  I'm still getting used to them, but they've done nothing to disappoint me.

Good cheap stainless tweezers in the usual straight pattern: Hakko CHP 3-SA

I also have a fairly nice pair of VOMM stainless steel tweezers which have angled flat tips which I have used fairly heavily for SMD soldering.

I would certainly say those Hakko tweezers are the cheapest (< $7 USD) of any tweezers I've ever used that weren't trash.  I haven't yet figured out conclusively if I prefer pointy or (fairly small) flat ends, nor whether I have a consistent preference for angled or straight ends.  Angled ends help me rest my hand on the table for steadiness, certainly.

[mtdoc]

Tweezers?  Aren't those the things that women use to pluck their eyebrows?  

If you want to find high quality fine Forceps I would look at Dumont (Swiss), Miltex (German), Tiemann and Aesculap (both American made I think).

[helius]

Vomm and Tronex are other good industrial tweezer brands.
Tweezerman makes the hair-plucking type of tweezers, but they are excellent quality and could be used for some electronics work.

[Rerouter]

The green "non magnetic" tweezers sold by Jaycar (in Australia) are my absolute favorite for anything precise they do wear and bend over time (4-8 months), but at $4 a pair, i keep a healthy supply of them,

[Gromitt]

Tweezers?  Aren't those the things that women use to pluck their eyebrows?  

If you want to find high quality fine Forceps I would look at Dumont (Swiss), Miltex (German), Tiemann and Aesculap (both American made I think).

Aesculap is German I believe.

[rob77]

i'm very happy with Vetus ESD-14 and ESD-15. don't buy them on ebay or from china - those are fake. i bought mine in a local brick-and-mortar shop, and for the sake of curiosity i bough few fakes from china.. while the fakes are usable, they are still much worse than the real deal.

I was wondering about that.

I gather all the Vetus tweezers are Chinese (even if they claim "Swiss-type" quality) so I am not sure how to tell if my Chinese one are are less genuine then yours.

Any chance of showing the difference between them - as a guide to us?

I think this may be the manufacturer, even if some of the tweezers have "SWITZERLAND STANDARD" engraved on the tweezers.

http://www.peakwin.com/english/eqipment.html

some of the "fake" ones i have have visible asymmetry in them and the tip tends to bend a little under bigger force. some of them have smeared marking (looks like messed up screen print, possibly a reject from production ? ) otherwise can't tell the difference - tips perfectly symmetric and behaves nicely under higher force applied. and all of them from different sources have the marking printed by a different font - so they're definitely not coming from a single manufacturer.

a picture is worth more than a 1k words

[chefkoch84]

I recommend: try to get your hands on medical equipment tweezers. ( for stainless steel) The quality is awsome. The sometimes come up second hands on ebay and co - often never used stock from the military etc.

Sent from my ALE-L21 using Tapatalk

[eliocor]

Quote from: rob77 on Today at 12:17:49
a picture is worth more than a 1k words

It would be MORE interesting if you can show us the quality of the tips of those tweezers!
Like I did with the Lindstrom ones, just to show their quality and finishing (all capacitors in pictures are 0402):


Lindstrom SM-108 SA after about 10 years of daily usage!!!



Lindstrom SM-100 SA: reverse action, very good to lock components/wires when soldering them



Lindstrom SM-108 SA: my preferred ones, near 0402 capacitors and 0603 resistors



Lindstrom TL 5-TA: titanium one, very sharp and extremely light (weight and touch)


Lindstrom TL 6-NC: Nickel super alloy, much resistant than SA. Very sharp and angled.



Lindstrom TL 7X-SA: reverse action, nice to lock very thin objects


BTW, the original poster was asking for BEST quality ones, not cheap chinese clones!!!

[HighVoltage]

I am also all for Lindstrom Tweezers
This is one I use all the time, the TL AA-SA-SL

[eliocor]

Even the 'SL' series, which are from the cheap line ones, are rather good!!!
But, if you want the BEST, do not buy the SL line...

[poorchava]

I'm mainly using Xytronic tweezers as my daily drivers. I prefer them purely because the force needed to operate them and their weight it the most comfortable for me. They are also rather cheap which is nice if anything happens to them (not that they are very delicate - I have a pair of 7-SA that are 8+ years old and are still going strong).

For high precision stuff I use Wiha #32326. Good, because the tip is pretty hard and does not bend easily.

I've had some Engineer and OHM tweezers, but I found them too heavy for my liking (admittedly, those were not super-fine tipped models, perhaps those are different)

I'm also using ophtalmological tweezers, as they have knurled tips, which is often handy (components don't slip).

[rob77]

Quote from: rob77 on Today at 12:17:49
a picture is worth more than a 1k words

It would be MORE interesting if you can show us the quality of the tips of those tweezers!

arranged them around 0402 capacitors and 0603 resistor , so you can see they're pretty usable for populating 0402 parts.

[amspire]

I recommend: try to get your hands on medical equipment tweezers. ( for stainless steel) The quality is awsome. The sometimes come up second hands on ebay and co - often never used stock from the military etc.

Sent from my ALE-L21 using Tapatalk

The steel used in medical tweezers can be very good and it is a very corrosion-resistant steel. They will look great for decades. Non-medical tweezers however have the freedom to use steel that can be superior in some ways to the medical steels. There are many excellent steels that are no good for sterilising. For example, type 302 stainless is a medical grade steel used in some tweezers. Type 304 has very similar properties of strength and hardness, except it is more heat resistant then type 302- so it is probably a better choice to use under a hot air gun.

[eliocor]

@rob77: thanks!!!

[amspire]

I have been scratching my head over your photo:


It looks like the genuine Vetus tweezers are made by Peakwin in China and they have been making them since 1996. They make about 3.5 million a year.

The only one in your photo that has the right looking font is the first, except I cannot find any mention of an ESD version of the TS-15 tweezers on the Peakwin sites, and the "15-ESD" characters are not in their usual font.

If it is genuine, the TS-15 tweezers are made using a steel that has about 75% of the hardness of the Vetus ESD-10 to ESD-17 range.

I have added a photo of my $2 Vetus ESD-14 clone tweezer tips - these are the ones I mentioned could take 1.6kG of squeezing without damaging the tips. I am holding a Toshiba HN1B01FU NPN/PNP transistor chip in the air by the lead without a problem. You can see the tip is not perfectly shaped, but it is close enough. Just put a standard 14 pin LM324 chip next to it for a size comparison.

[eliocor]

Fine!
I love those comparison photos!!!

[janoc]

Seriously, these tool threads are pure gold and nerd porn!

Thanks guys, this is very useful stuff. I would even suggest the admins to create a special section for such information, because this gets asked over and over.
 

[Harb]

Yes a "Tools of the Trade"section would be good........

It saves buying and learning the hard way.........the members here are a wealthy source of info on whats good and whats not from practical experience thats really priceless in my opion.

[KL27x]

You can see the tip is not perfectly shaped, but it is close enough.

If you have a microscope to see what you don't like, you can fix it. A fine stone (Arkansas stone or sintered ceramic) or 1000+ grit sandpaper stuck to a piece of FR-4 is about right. Getting the ones with the right tip, spread, size, force, erogs, etc is more important to me than how many layers of Kevlar I can pierce with them.

[nukie]

I really like my Lindstrom Ti tweezers. It's super lightweight and it has very light spring compression so there is great amount of feedback when it is gripping on very tiny 0402.

Some tweezers have very heavy spring which provide very little 'feel' so you will use too much or too little force.

Sent from my D6503 using Tapatalk

[benadamson]

Sorry for the necro, thought it would be better than starting a whole new thread for the same topic.

I'm considering a few options for tweezer sets for work, with the expectation that they will get moderate use for SMD rework by a few people.

• Option 1, £70: Lindstrom 9855 - TL SS-SA, TL AA-SA, TL 2A-SA, TL 4A-SA, TL 7A-SA
• Option 2, £95: Ideal-Tek K5SMDF.IT - SM103, SM107, SM108, SM111, SM115
• Option 3, £200: Lindstrom 9854 - TL 5C-SA, TL 5-SA, TL SM 101-SA, TL SM 102-SA, TL SM 107-SA, TL SM 108-SA, TL SM 115-SA

I won't go for the £200 set as there's a chance they will be abused so spending huge amounts is unwise. But how do the other two options stack up?

[eliocor]

Every person must have its OWN set of tweezers and MUST be responsible for its care!
There is no space for "a chance they will be abused"!
BTW, I think I can't help you in choosing between the sets: you say nothing about your requirements:
- minimum component size
- what kind of reworking
- other requirement
- ....

[MarkMLl]

Incidentally, I meant to mention this before. I got a pair of ceramic "tweezers" from BangGood on a whim, they cost about £2.50 and while I'm not entirely sure what they're made of (carbon steel leaves a streak on them) they're surprisingly useful for holding stuff right next to a soldering iron.

https://www.banggood.com/Heat-Resistant-Anti-static-Multifunctional-Ceramic-Tweezer-for-RDA-RBA-DIY-Vape-p-1545873.html

MarkMLl

[janoc]

Incidentally, I meant to mention this before. I got a pair of ceramic "tweezers" from BangGood on a whim, they cost about £2.50 and while I'm not entirely sure what they're made of (carbon steel leaves a streak on them) they're surprisingly useful for holding stuff right next to a soldering iron.

https://www.banggood.com/Heat-Resistant-Anti-static-Multifunctional-Ceramic-Tweezer-for-RDA-RBA-DIY-Vape-p-1545873.html

MarkMLl

That looks very much like teflon tips.

But guys, you do realize that this is a thread from 2017, right?

[Mr. Scram]

That looks very much like teflon tips.

But guys, you do realize that this is a thread from 2017, right?

Did the tweezer market change unrecognisably in the mean time? Did Big Tweeze sink its claws in us?

[MarkMLl]

That looks very much like teflon tips.

I know. But they're sufficiently hard that I can't scratch them (even where there's a surface imperfection) with a kiridashi blade which instead just about leaves a streak (i.e. around 6 on the Mohs scale), and the tips are noticeably cooler in free air than the loop. Also note the brass inserts for the screws.

Bottom line: I don't much care what they are, they're useful at the price.

MarkMLl

[dzseki]

My favourite tweezer is a vintage Swiss "Dumont style 4" it is a dream actually to work with...

[tooki]

Tweezers?  Aren't those the things that women use to pluck their eyebrows?  

If you want to find high quality fine Forceps I would look at Dumont (Swiss), Miltex (German), Tiemann and Aesculap (both American made I think).

Forceps and tweezers are different things, dude. Forceps are like scissors, but with grippy tips instead of blades. Tweezers are leaf spring based grippers. Some are made for beauty, many (most?) are made for technical and laboratory use.


I have some Vitus tweezers and IMHO they suck. Don’t even begin to compare with the Wiha I own at home or the Erem and Ideal-Tek I use at work.

[MarkMLl]

Forceps and tweezers are different things, dude. Forceps are like scissors, but with grippy tips instead of blades. Tweezers are leaf spring based grippers.

Disagree. You can have tweezers and forceps which are indistinguishable, the name is determined entirely by the profession/trade in which they're used... although the distinction is blurred in e.g. first aid and emergency surgery.

Slightly later: curiously, looking round for reputable sources to confirm (or refute) that, I came across https://www.fishersci.co.uk/gb/en/products/I9C8L3UU/spatulas-forceps-utensils.html where they've got forceps of all shapes and sizes- of which very few are "scissors" type. However they do have what they call "watchmaker's forceps"... my father and de-facto grandfather were watchmakers and I certainly *never* heard them refer to anything other than tweezers.

Which I suppose confirms my argument: the name is determined by the user, not by the pattern or manufacturer.

MarkMLl

[helius]

Forceps are like scissors, but with grippy tips instead of blades.

I have heard those referred to more often as "hemostats/haemostats", at least the variant that locks closed. Although they aren't commonly offered by electronics suppliers, they are very useful for manipulating small objects, cleaning debris from narrow passages, etc.

[tooki]

Hemostats are a specific type of forceps. (As you said, the kind with locking teeth, since a hemostat is designed for closing off blood vessels in surgery, as the name implies.)

But tweezers are very distinctly NOT forceps.

[tooki]

Forceps and tweezers are different things, dude. Forceps are like scissors, but with grippy tips instead of blades. Tweezers are leaf spring based grippers.

Disagree. You can have tweezers and forceps which are indistinguishable, the name is determined entirely by the profession/trade in which they're used... although the distinction is blurred in e.g. first aid and emergency surgery.

Slightly later: curiously, looking round for reputable sources to confirm (or refute) that, I came across https://www.fishersci.co.uk/gb/en/products/I9C8L3UU/spatulas-forceps-utensils.html where they've got forceps of all shapes and sizes- of which very few are "scissors" type. However they do have what they call "watchmaker's forceps"... my father and de-facto grandfather were watchmakers and I certainly *never* heard them refer to anything other than tweezers.

Which I suppose confirms my argument: the name is determined by the user, not by the pattern or manufacturer.

MarkMLl

I suppose so. I’ve always seen the basic distinction I originally explained. Certainly, I’ve never seen the word “tweezers” reserved for the cosmetic device.

[MarkMLl]

I suppose so. I’ve always seen the basic distinction I originally explained. Certainly, I’ve never seen the word “tweezers” reserved for the cosmetic device.

I've used forceps during dissections, and almost simultaneously tweezers to manipulate the weights on a precision balance in the same environment. They were indistinguishable, at least in geometry, and it has long struck me as odd.

I don't think you can distinguish by tip shape, i.e. pointed or spatulate. It might, however, be possible to say that tweezers usually have flat contact faces while forceps are serrated, and that would be consistent with artery clamps (haemostats etc.) sometimes being called forceps... anything more than that is due to habitual usage by a profession or trade.

MarkMLl

[2N3055]

I suppose so. I’ve always seen the basic distinction I originally explained. Certainly, I’ve never seen the word “tweezers” reserved for the cosmetic device.

I've used forceps during dissections, and almost simultaneously tweezers to manipulate the weights on a precision balance in the same environment. They were indistinguishable, at least in geometry, and it has long struck me as odd.

I don't think you can distinguish by tip shape, i.e. pointed or spatulate. It might, however, be possible to say that tweezers usually have flat contact faces while forceps are serrated, and that would be consistent with artery clamps (haemostats etc.) sometimes being called forceps... anything more than that is due to habitual usage by a profession or trade.

MarkMLl

Forceps is a medical profession term for tools for holding.. It includes all kinds of tools that other professions call tweezers, and all kinds of scissors looking devices with (for arterial clamping, and those just designed to hold something ) or non clamping devices...

In electronics, in addition to tweezers, medical forceps of locking types are very useful..

[tooki]

FWIW, the wiki article “forceps” says that term is pretty much exclusively used in the medical field, while everywhere else, they’re called tweezers.

For sure, if you google “ESD forceps”, practically all hits are for “ESD tweezers”.

[MarkMLl]

FWIW, the wiki article “forceps” says that term is pretty much exclusively used in the medical field, while everywhere else, they’re called tweezers.

Which is much what I said: it appears to be application-defined.

For sure, if you google “ESD forceps”, practically all hits are for “ESD tweezers”.

I'd hardly say that Google's idea of what's synonymous is a reliable source of information :-)

MarkMLl

[tooki]

No, but if google can’t even find many examples of “ESD forceps”, that does say a lot.

[pidcon]

I vote for Ideal-Tek too. It's really good and worthwhile, but expensive.

As for the Ideal-Tek action, it is smoother and it will put less stress on the hands if you're using it for long hours. 

For cheap tweezers, I quite like the Pro's Kit tweezers.

[MarkMLl]

Whenever I look for "pro's kit", eBay et al. insist on presenting the clothing categories...

MarkMLl

[calin]

If you don't want to break the bank and want some nice good ones try on amazon - search for: Aven 18475USA.  30$ for a set of 6 nice enough tweezers ... you decide

[mahi]

(I know this is an old topic but I don't think my post warrants a new one and this topic comes up in many searches on tweezers)

I was looking for reverse-action tweezers. For my daily tweezers I use quality ones from Ideal-tek and Vomm but I did not think reverse-action tweezers to be important enough to go for the top brands. So, I purchased a few no-name reverse-action tweezers from Amazon but these turned out to be a major disappointment. Weak clamping force, imprecise and blunt tips made them rather frustrating to use.

After seeing pictures by member eliocor of Lindström TL SM100-SA and TL 7X-SA reverse-action tweezers, I really wanted to have some of these. But, I was not looking forward to paying Lindström prices and even if I wanted, I couldn't find the tweezers for sale. They appear to be out of stock everywhere with no indication of lead time.

In the meantime I learned that Ideal-tek is the OEM of Lindström, but I couldn't find the Ideal-tek version of the TL SM100-SA.

Then by coincidence I found a picture of a pair of tweezers that looked virtually identical to the Lindström TL SM100-SA: The Wetec SM100.SA. I had never heard of Wetec but apparently its the house brand or affiliate of Dönges, a large German retailer (of which I had not heard either). When inspecting other Wetec tweezers I discovered that many look identical to the Ideal-tek/Lindström offerings. Wetec also states "Swiss made". My confidence started to grow that these Wetec tweezers were also made by Ideal-tek. Best of all is that the prices are considerably cheaper than Ideal-tek and Lindström. So, I decided to order a few including the SM108.SA which I already had from Ideal-tek for comparison (I purchased from the Dönges eBay shop as shipping was much lower but that may differ from country to country).

I really didn't need another one, but last week I scored a lightly used Lindström TL SM108-SA from eBay which would make the comparison complete.

Pictures of the Wetec SM108.SA, Ideal-tek SM108.SA and Lindström TL SM108-SA:



The Wetec tweezers come with the same ribbed silicone tube tip protection as Ideal-tek and Lindström.



At first glance all three look identical. They have the same satin (sand blasted?) finish and rounded edges.



Wetec left, Ideal-tek middle, Lindström right. A close-up of the tips when closed. The tips were held closed for the picture by using a header but I didn't do a good job with the Ideal-tek. I did not notice until after making the pictures that it was not fully closed. In reality it is just as good as the Wetec.



Wetec left, Ideal-tek middle, Lindström right.



Wetec left, Ideal-tek middle, Lindström right. Holding 0603 capacitors.

Judging by these pictures the Wetec and Ideal-tek look virtually identical but the Lindström seems to have a slightly more accurate tip shape. Keep in mind these tweezers are all hand-made so some variance is normal. There is no difference in how they "feel" when handling small components.

Anyway, this confirms the Wetec tweezers are genuine rebranded Ideal-tek tweezers. They are still relatively expensive, but cheaper than Ideal-tek and a lot cheaper than Lindström. So they might be a good option for them who want to up their game but not pay full prices.

Here are a few pictures of the Wetec 7X.SA, 2AX.SA, 3X.SA and SM100.SA reverse-action tweezers:





From left to right: Wetec 7X.SA, 2AX.SA, 3X.SA and SM100.SA.



From left to right: Wetec 3X.SA holding 0603 capacitor, SM100.SA holding 30AWG patch wire, 7X.SA holding 0603 capacitor and 2AX.SA holding 3528 LED.

Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with Wetec or Dönges, I only compared tweezers I was interested in so other models may come from different manufacturers, and it is possible Wetec gets "second grade" or rejects from Ideal-tek but from my small sample set they seem to be just as good as the Ideal-tek ones.

[eliocor]

 

[Microdoser]

I quite like the ceramic tipped ones for their complete lack of ability to ever get magnetised, also you can replace the tips if anythign happens to them. Part of the removable tip bonus is you can slightly adjust the tips to get a perfect tip fit.

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/516v6RwkgdL._AC_.jpg

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002F9MQOC