Clecos
OK, I will chime in here. First, let me say that there are only three companies that make what are commonly called clecos in the USA (it also appears that there are some import clecos from Taiwan & China being sold by a couple of tool suppliers.)
Those three American companies are:
Zephyr - maker of the 'Kwik-Lok'
Monogram - maker of the 'Wedgelock'
California Associated Products - maker of the 'Clekoloc'
My company, Brown Aviation Tool sells clecos made by Zephyr and CAP.
All of the clecos that we sell are made in the USA and are of the highest quality - in a year, we sell well over one million spring clecos to customers ranging from a guy doing a small repair on his Piper in his hangar to the largest airlines and militaries in the world and every type and size of customer in between.
None of the clecos that we sell are ?bad?? as they do EXACTLY what they are advertised and intended to do. A 3/32? cleco is designed to clamp a 3/32? hole ? what it is not designed to do is clamp a hole that has been overly enlarged or flared in the dimpling & deburring process. We have sold hundreds of thousands of clecos to RV builders who have had zero problems ? we have also heard from a handful of RV builders who complain that their clecos do not ?hold? their dimpled holes. I would submit that the issue is not with the cleco.
There is a great and easy way to test the diameter effectiveness of a spring cleco ? grab a flat numbered or fractional drill gage (
http://www.browntool.com/Default.as...ield=ProductName,ProductNumber&productid=1784 ) that you know has perfectly drilled holes in the appropriate diameters. Then grab a pair of cleco pliers and the spring cleco you are concerned about - I just went out to the warehouse and grabbed a handful of our
K-3/32 spring clecos, and after testing I see that the cleco will easily enter and clamp the following size holes:
#42 (.0935) thru #32 (.1160)
And testing a
K-1/8 cleco, I see that it will easily enter and clamp the following size holes:
#31 (.1181) thru #26 (.1470)
So, as you can see, our clecos do precisely what they are advertised to do and that is clamp properly drilled holes. Some people might not like a particular brand of cleco for whatever reason, but please do not call them ?bad? or ?defective? because it is simply not so.
With all of that being said, we did have a batch of the CAP clecos about 6 or 7 years ago that had improperly formed tangs. That batch of clecos did cause a few headaches for us and some of our customers - but the issue has long been fixed. Both of the manufacturers who make our clecos now batch test their products in a test fixture before shipping.
Thanks!
Michael Brown
Brown Aviation Tool Supply Co.
Oklahoma City, OK 73129
www.browntool.com