For the past few years, we’ve been talking about all of Dick Raczuk’s latest and greatest tools from Koul Tools. From the Fitting Fixers to the Sureseat Flare Lapping Tools, Raczuk has been busy developing new ways to make life easy when it comes to fluid couplings. However, we don’t want to forget the tool which started it all.

The original Koul Tool is the company’s AN hose assembly tool, which takes all the pokiness and bloodletting out of assembling the hose ends onto the stainless-braided hose. While struggling with them might be a right of passage for some, the Koul Tool AN assembly tool makes life easy, funneling the cut (and more than likely frayed) end into the fitting easily and nimbly.

However, Raczuk was faced with the issue of certain hoses and fittings not seating all the way together with the tool alone, in kind of a reverse Chinese finger trap situation with the braiding (when pushing, it wants to expand). To solve the problem, the traditional, instinctual (read: caveman brain) way is to just push harder on the hose.

Instead, Raczuk put on his thinking cap and came up with this alternate way of final assembly of the hose-end onto the braided hose, when the parts are being stubborn. By flipping the assembly in the aluminum vise jaws, and clamping on the hose instead of the nut, it not only supports the outside of the braided hose (preventing the Chinese finger trap effect) but also allows access to the aluminum nut.

With the nut accessible, a palm wrench fitted with an appropriately-sized shallow socket can be used to twist the nut the rest of the way onto the line while also allowing pressure to be applied in the proper direction. Oh, and if you’re wondering about that cool tri-lobe palm ratchet Raczuk is using in the video, it’s a Snap-On F714, and you’ll probably need to head to eBay to get one, under “vintage tools”.

This method is only necessary on particularly stubborn combinations, as for most lines, the Koul Tool AN assembly tool will accomplish the task admirably.