Four pliers do the work. The rest are drawer clutter.

Quick answer: Own four pliers: tongue-and-groove, locking, needle nose and diagonal cutters. Spend $25 to $45 on each. Everything else is a one-job tool, and you can borrow it.

Go open the drawer. Count the pliers. If you've got more than six, you're probably holding a 12-piece set that came free with something, plus two or three bought in a hurry for a single repair. They all look useful. Most of them haven't moved in years.

The four that earn their place

Tongue-and-groove pliers (the ones everybody calls Channellocks). The jaws slide along a row of grooves and open wide, so one pair grips a drain trap, a garden hose fitting and a seized pipe nipple. Get the 9.5-inch size first. Channellock makes the standard and runs roughly $25 to $35. Knipex makes the upgrade, the Cobra, at about $40 to $60. The Cobra adjusts with a push-button and locks parallel on the work, so it doesn't slip and chew up a chrome fitting. You'll feel the difference the first time you reach under a sink.

Locking pliers. Vise-Grip is the name, and the 10-inch curved jaw is the one to own. Expect $15 to $25. Clamp it on a stripped bolt head, a rounded-off nut, a sheet of metal you're drilling. Set the screw once and it holds like a third hand. The cheap knockoffs are the one place I'd tell you not to save money. The jaw teeth on bargain versions round off and the lock creeps open under load. That's exactly when you need it to hold.

Needle nose. Six or eight inches, with a cutter at the base of the jaws. Klein makes a good one for $20 to $30. This is your tool for fishing a dropped screw out of an outlet box, bending a hook in wire, or pulling a cotter pin. Nothing else reaches where it reaches.

Diagonal cutters. Seven inches. Klein again, roughly $20 to $30. They cut wire, zip ties, cotter pins and the plastic tags off new tools. Flush-cut edges leave nothing sharp sticking out. Buy these before you buy any "wire tool kit."

That's about $100 to $150 for all four, depending on how much Knipex you can stomach. It's a lifetime set.

The fifth one, if you do any electrical work

A 9-inch lineman's pliers. The Klein D213-9NE runs about $30 to $45. It's a heavy flat-nosed plier with a cutter in the throat, built to twist wire, pull it, and cut it in one tool. Electricians carry them for good reason.

Understand what the rubber handles are, though. They're comfort grips. They won't protect you from live current. Shut the breaker off, test the wire, and then go to work. If you don't know how to do those steps, you aren't ready to be inside the panel. Call a licensed electrician.

What the cheap ones get right and wrong

A $10 set of pliers from a discount bin does one thing well: it cuts soft copper wire and grips a small nut when the stakes are low. If you're hanging a picture, it's fine.

Here's where it falls apart.

• The pivot rivet has slop. The jaws wobble, so the grip is off-center and the part slips.
• The steel is soft. Cutters roll their edge the first time you hit a hardened wire or a screw, and then they crush instead of cut.
• The handles are thin. Squeeze hard for a minute and your palm tells you about it.

You don't need the top shelf. You need the middle. A $30 Channellock is made in Pennsylvania and will outlast your kids' time at home. The $120 set isn't any better at removing a P-trap.

The specialty ones collecting dust

Here's the pile I'd expect to find, and what to do with each.

Snap-ring pliers. They're good tools for small engines, shocks and some gearboxes. If you never open any of those, you'll use them once. Borrow a pair.

Hose clamp pliers. They make quick work of spring clamps on a radiator hose. But the same job gets done with your needle nose or tongue-and-groove, only slower and with some skinned knuckles. Buy one only if you do a lot of cooling-system work.

Pipe wrench disguised as pliers. The ones with a built-in wrench jaw. They're clever, and they do neither job as well as a real adjustable wrench. Skip.

Long-reach "bent nose" pliers, hemostats, and the 40-piece mini-set. They look like a bargain. You'll use one pair and ignore the other thirty-nine.

Crimpers and wire strippers. Different story. If you wire anything, a real automatic stripper ($20 to $30 from Klein or Irwin) is worth owning and a pair of pliers can't replace it. Using your teeth or a knife on wire insulation is how you nick the copper and cause a loose connection years later.

When to borrow instead of buy

A one-time job doesn't justify a new tool. Many auto parts chains run loan-a-tool programs: you leave a deposit, take the tool, bring it back and get your money back. Call your local store and ask. A neighbor who works on cars or small engines probably has the snap-ring pliers you need. Ask nicely and don't make it a project for them.

And then follow the old rule. Return it cleaner than it came. Wipe the grease off, put a drop of oil on the pivot, and bring it back with something small for the favor, like a six-pack of cold drinks or a loaf of your wife's banana bread. Do that and you'll never have trouble borrowing again.

A twenty-minute drawer purge

1. Dump everything onto a table.
2. Pull out the four pliers above. If yours are rusted or loose, put them on the shopping list.
3. Test the rest. Open and close each pair. If the jaws wobble or the cutters are chewed, throw them out.
4. Group what's left by job. Anything you can't name a use for goes in a box. Write the date on it.
5. If nothing came out of that box in six months, donate it or sell it.
6. Wipe the four keepers with an oily rag and hang them where you can see them. The tool layout system here shows how to give each one a home so it gets put back.

If you're building the whole kit from scratch, the 20 tools every homeowner needs covers the rest of the list. And before you buy anything pricey for a single job, read what to rent and what to buy.

One last warning

Pliers aren't wrenches. Use them on a hex nut and you'll round the corners in about ten seconds. Then the fix is a locking plier and a bad afternoon. If the nut has flats, reach for a box-end or an adjustable wrench. Save the pliers for what they were made to grip.

Four good pairs, a small drawer, and a clear head about what you actually do. That's a toolbox that works.