The Pliers That Grab a Stripped Screw Your Driver Can't

The screwdriver goes in, you lean on it, and it spins. The cross in the head has rounded into a shallow dish. The usual advice comes next: buy an extractor kit and get out the drill.

If you've rounded out a screw head and the driver just spins, there's a tool that skips most of that. It's a pair of pliers with teeth cut to bite a screw head, and some of its biggest fans are aircraft mechanics.

Can pliers really get a stripped screw out?

In r/aviationmaintenance, somebody asked about a pair of Japanese-made pliers. Were they any good? The top answer, by a long way, was three words: "amazing for stripped screws".

They're the Engineer screw removal pliers, called Neji-Saurus at home in Japan. One mechanic bought a pair for that one job and calls them a massive time saver, with no more easy-outs and no more grinding heads off.

Another has used them more times than screw extractors by now. Their boss found them online, bought a pair, and had a full set within the week.

These pliers will grip the tiniest edges on a screw you couldn't even imagine any other tool grasping.

u/elkcox13, in r/aviationmaintenance

One order of attack from the thread runs a Phillips driver, a JIS driver, an impact driver, then the pliers, and only then an easy-out. The extractor from the usual advice is last on that list.

How do they grip a head a screwdriver can't?

A screwdriver works from inside the head. Once the recess is rounded, there's nothing in there left to push against. These pliers work from the outside. The jaws carry serrations running two ways, across and lengthways. The lengthways teeth bite into the rim of the head so you can turn it. The maker's own instruction is just grip and turn.

The nose is slim, for getting into tight spots, and the jaws are rated for heads from three to nine and a half millimetres across. That's a machine screw, a cabinet hinge screw, the screws in a laptop or a light switch plate. Not a lag bolt.

One mechanic says they'll grip the shank with just a small sliver sticking up.

Aftermath's Chris Person, who repairs arcade cabinets, says the Neji-Saurus "will grip on to anything" and is shocked how often they get used. There's a caution too. They bite hard enough to tear something up if you aren't careful.

When won't they work?

They need something to hold. That's the main limit, and the thread's most-voted caution says it plainly.

They are good if you can grab onto the head. So countersunk screws are not able to be grabbed unless they are sticking out enough.

u/PapiTaken, in r/aviationmaintenance

A flush or countersunk screw gives the jaws nothing. The same mechanic owns a pair and barely uses it, because button heads are rare on the planes they work on. Sometimes, they say, the only option is to drill and use an easy-out.

An owner in r/handyman says theirs grip all but the most flush screws.

The pliers take a pan head, a button head, a round head, a rusted slot or a screw that's backed out a turn. A screw sunk below the surface goes back to the drill and the extractor.

Do the teeth wear out?

They can, and it depends on what you put them on. Two mechanics in the aviation thread had the vertical teeth ground down on the first use. The second guessed at a bad batch, since everyone else seemed to swear by them.

On the Garage Journal forum, a member owns several Engineer models. The pair used most, fewer than ten times, already shows wear to the teeth. The screws were junk steel, the kind that strips in the first place. The same member's bigger Knipex has had far more use and shows none.

A reviewer at Pliersman tried them on Tapcon masonry screws and other heavy fasteners. They gripped once, then spun, and the jaws were left with "a toothless grin". The pair stayed in the toolbox as ordinary combination pliers, and a second pair was bought for small, soft screws only.

The teeth are made for small screws, and they wear fastest when pushed past that. The maker rates the hardened jaws for heads under ten millimetres. A masonry screw, a lag bolt or a hardened structural screw sits outside that, and the pliers will tell you by going smooth.

For those, the pair people name is the Knipex TwinGrip. One mechanic used the Engineers on a stripped button head and bought the Knipex version later that night.

An owner of both says the Engineers bite harder on small screws and the TwinGrips "adjust pretty damn wide" for the bigger fasteners.

Back on Garage Journal, another member with several Engineer configurations prefers the Knipex too, finding it more comfortable and more versatile.

Which pair should you buy first?

For small screws, the standard pair, the PZ-58. Mechanics who own several Engineer models say so. One calls them the most useful of the line.

Another, with Engineers, Knipex and Snap-on all in the box, loves them for the smaller screws and moves to the Knipex from medium up.

Two step-ups exist from Engineer, if your screws run bigger. The r/handyman owner who draws the line at flush screws called these the most useful tool they'd ever bought for the house. The pair they actually linked to was the 8-inch heavy-duty one, the PZ-59.

There are slip-joint versions too. In r/Tools, a collector with over a dozen pairs rates the slip joints as their favourite. Another finds them far more useful than the lineman style for rusty screws on vintage cars.

Three names to keep straight when you're looking:

• Vampliers. The same maker's pliers under an American importer's name. An r/Tools owner calls them near enough the same thing from the same company, shaped more like lineman's pliers. The r/handyman owner found the Engineer-branded pair cheaper.
• The pistol-grip ones. Icon at Harbor Freight and Snap-on each sell a pistol-grip screw plier. A different design, and a couple of mechanics in the aviation thread rate them, one finding it works great where there's access.
• The other Engineer. Aftermath flags an unrelated Chinese company of the same name selling on AliExpress, not to be confused with the Japanese one. Check the listing says it's made in Japan.

Buy the standard pair and keep it in the drawer where the screwdrivers live. Next time a head rounds out, push the jaws down over it, squeeze, and turn. Keep the extractor kit for the screw that's sunk flush, because that one's still the drill's job.