Rick wrote:

I have been using this from Home Depot
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Xcelite-4...5#.UtRwxiFEOgM

They are only $ 13.97 and include a needle nose pliers. They cut dip leads
just fine and are cheap enough to keep a few sets around. It is a good
bench set of tools.


This is a good point.

Early on I started using these imported (either Sweden or some where around
there) diagonal cutters and thought they were surgeon tools. But in the
early/mid 1980's, they were around $80 a set.

Thing was, even though they had a better life span than like Craftmans, they
still didn't last more than 6 or 7 months, but they did see much heavier
than normal use.

After a while, they did seem to be a waste of money, some of the
over-the-counter brands like Xcelite were actually pretty good, shorter life
span but good hand balance, narrow tip, hold angle.

Being you could get 6 or more pairs for the cost of 1 import, the difference
in life span just didn't make sense with the imports.

-bruce