Is it worth buying top quality secateurs?

This is one of those topics which always interests me: so many professional gardeners - and amateurs, for that matter - make a big deal about only buying Felco secateurs, whereas I personally buy Wilco cheapy tools for less than a tenner, use them until they break, then throw them away and buy a new pair.

At this point, the Felco Owners Club look at me in horror, and say things like "but I've had these Felcos for 200 years and they're still going strong: I've replaced the blades three times, had four new springs, and two new sets of handles..." 

Ok, that last bit was a joke, but yes, Felco owners will always justify the exorbitant cost of their posh secateurs by saying that you can send the blades back to be sharpened, or you can buy replacement blades for them at "just" £30 a time... but in my opinion,  for the money, I would rather have ten pairs of cheap secateurs, each lasting a couple of years.

Here's a sample of my current selection of cheapy secateurs, and yes, they are standing up on their sides - don't ask! 

I think the most expensive ones are the clean ones, the Fiskars bypass, second from right: and I think they might have cost £12.

I should point out that I sharpen my (cheap) secateurs very often, probably once every couple of weeks, so it's not a question of sharpness: the springs tend to break, so I have a box full of assorted springs on hand, and when I finally throw out a pair, I always take the spring off, and re-use it: in fact, the weakest link in all the secateurs tends to be the locking latch. Once that wears out, they become impossible to use effectively and efficiently. I used to send them back to the manufacturer and have them replace the latch, along with the suggestion that they should source stronger latch material... 

So, back to Why?

Because I abuse my secateurs, that's why. I'm a professional gardener, I'm paid (as it were) by the minute, so I can't waste time running back to my car every five minutes to get a pair of loppers, or a pruning saw, if the items which I am cutting are just slightly too thick for the secateurs. Instead, I just abuse the secateurs by forcing them through tougher/thicker branches than they are comfortable with. 

There are a couple of techniques for cutting over-sized branches with under-sized tools (heh heh) which I won't share with you now, but they are not really good for the tools.

I also use them for cutting roots, under ground - and anyone who uses bladed tools knows that "earth" is the worst possible things for blades, because the small particles of rock damage and blunt the blades. You should never, ever use a bladed tool - secateurs, loppers, pruning saws - in such a way that the come into contact with the soil.

Yet I do it, all the time, because I have to. I can't stop to wash every particle of dirt off a branch or root, before I cut it - I'm paid to be efficient, to be effective, to be fast... so I abuse my tools, terribly.

If I had posh Felco secateurs, at £50+ a pair, I would not abuse them in this way! So they wouldn't be much use to me, would they?!

And that, dear reader, is why I don't have expensive posh secateurs.

Mind you, under the general heading of "there is no right or wrong in gardening", I do currently have a pair of very expensive secateurs.... a friend gave them to me for Christmas, and at first they stayed at home, unused, until the friend commented, somewhat crossly, that they were supposed to be used, not looked at. 

So I started using them, and they're doing quite well so far: they've lasted the best part of a year, no damage or breakage, despite being abused etc: I've only just had to start sharpening them, so they've held their edge well: but, despite being very "nice", they do have a couple of drawbacks.

Firstly, they are noisy. Every time they open, they make a small metallic noise. It's caused by that nappy-style spring, and no amount of WD40 prevents it. It's quite annoying.

When they close, they make a very satisfactory "snick", which is nice: I've written before about Clients commenting that they find me, in their gardens, by listening for the snick of the secateurs. 

The latch is an excellent design: it's not left- or right-handed, and I always appreciate that in my tools (I train all students, trainees and mentorees to learn to use most tools in either hand). Initially, I didn't like it, because it needed two hands to operate, which is just silly: but after a while, I got the hang of flicking it open by  "catching" it on my clothing, and closing it by simply nudging it against my leg. 

So far, then, all good.

But there are two design flaws which I find quite annoying; the constantly-annoying one is that they "slide" down in your hand: as you release the handles from making a snip, the spring is sufficiently strong that it pings itself open, and the angle of the red handle, the one that lies against the thumb, is not sharp enough to stay solidly in place, in your hand.

So if you are doing a repeated series of snips, by the time you've done about five, they are almost out of your hand, so you have to stop and re-adjust your grip on them. That is super-annoying. 

I tried to get a photo to illustrate the problem:

Here is my hand, doing three successive "snips".

You can see how they are slipping down inside my hand, with each action.

I asked the friend who gave them to me, and they have exactly the same problem. So it's not just me...

 

The other issue is that point at which the two handles meet, just below the blades:  the "bump stop". 

If using them bare-handed, once they've slipped down in your hand, it's awfully easy to get pinched by the bump stop! 

Here - right - is the photo at the end of the sequence above, when I open my hand: I've moved my thumb back out of the way, so that you can see where they are sitting in my hand:

I have had several very nice little blood blisters from that, thank you very much.

So on balance, once these posh ones bite the dust, I'm going back to the cheap and cheerful ones, which I shall use and abuse with impunity!

 

 

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