I quit using safety wire pliers on everything and my knuckles finally stopped bleeding

Cameron Knight · 2026-09-17T14:05:04.211823+00:00

Last Tuesday I was doing a fuel pump swap on a King Air at our hangar in Wichita and my lead looked at me fighting with the safety wire for like 15 minutes. He told me to ditch the pliers and do it by hand with a twister for the lock and then just pull it tight with duckbills. First few tries my loops looked rough but by the third pump they were way cleaner than anything the pliers ever gave me. The pliers always overtwisted and made those brittle spots that snap right at the pigtail, plus they slip and stab you when you least expect it. Doing it by hand takes maybe 20 extra seconds per bolt but I haven't broken a single wire since and my hands are thanking me. Anybody else here gone back to hand twisting or am I the only one on this bandwagon?

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I quit using safety wire pliers on everything and my knuckles finally stopped bleeding | Aircraft Mechanics - HW Forums