Good tree loppers

Can anyone recommend a good make of loppers?

My current ones are rubbish. I might as well use a pair of scissors.

The most annoying part is that I had an excellent pair that cost me less than £20. They would cut through an inch with no effort, and they'd do 2 inches with a bit of force, even though they were only rated to an inch. They were great, until my mate who is the genuine missing genetic link between primates and modern man, snapped them.

So more recently I paid nearly double the price for what I expected to be a better pair, and they are so feeble its unbelievable. Cutting through half an inch of Hawthorn is a chore.

I'm after something beefy that will do fresh wood up to a respectable thickness (an inch and a half would be good), but that is good value.

 

Have a look at these: Loppers - Original Löwe

Top quality German engineering at lower price than Felco or Bahco and full range of spares available:

Contact Quality Garden Tools - Silky Saws, Tina Knives, Bulldog Tools and more! for details.

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Thanks folks.

I could kick myself now Marley because I saw some loppers just like the ones you recommend, and very nearly bought them, but opted for the rubbish ones instead because mine look more beefy.

Its pay day soon, I think I might buy myself an early Christmas pressie, and retire my rubbish loppers to the 'spares and backup' cupboard.

 

I was in Robert Dyas in Thame, Oxon today and they had Fiskars Powergear loppers on sale reduced down from thirty something pounds to only £9.99. If you are a Telegraph subscriber (like me) you can 15% off anything at Robert Dyas on a Thurday. I looked in their store in Witney later in the afternoon, but there was no price label on these loppers. They are not listed on the Robert Dyas website. I think they were about 600mm long overall. http://www.robertdyas.co.uk/findastore.php

 

I have a blue pair of anvil loppers which I bought for £12 from some cheapo outlet years ago and they have been fantastic. I bought a better quality pair of bypass loppers a year or two back and they are useless - the branches just slip out of the jaws of the blades as you close the handles to apply pressure. So I always use the cheapo one.

 

Got those Fiskars loppers for £8.49 today after discount. They are Fiskars PowerGear Medium bypass loppers (up to 38mm) 550mm long ref. 112290 with a RRP of £37.99, and the cheapest I could find them online was on ebay over £30 delivered. I thought I'd seen a good review of them on here and it was Marley's post above I was thinking of.

When the sales assistant scanned them he nudged a colleage and asked "is that right" pointing to the screen. He then said he needed to "go and get a code" - but if he's got the price up on screen he obviously didn't need a code, he was obviously going to check the price on the display as he thought £9.99 was an error.

And then we got 15% discount using our Telegraph subscribers card, getting them reduced by a further £1.50. That'll be one of my Xmas presents from My Mother in Law who gives me the cash knowing I'll manage to get 4 x the stuff she could get for me with the same money.

 

I have a pair of these - not cheap, but absolutely fabulous - cut through the thickest branch with ease.

LOWE 20.065 ANVIL LOPPERS 65CM | Anvil Loppers | Loppers | Hand Tools | Quality Garden Tools

 

My last pair and my current ones are both anvil type. My first pair, despite costing under £20 (can't remember the exact price) were fantastic. They only died because I have a friend who is the missing link who sometimes helps me. He is very, very strong, which is great because he is sadly lacking in the thinking department and we all have to have our strengths and weaknesses. Unfortunately, one winter, this combination of great physical strength and limited thinking meant that he introduced my loppers to a piece of wood that was laying on the ground, frozen solid, and considerably thicker than the loppers were meant to cope with. Cold steel is brittle, frozen wood is hard, my mate is a neandertal. It was a foregone conclusion.

I replaced them with another, different pair of anvil types ones. I paid more for my current one than my last one, yet the current one is rubbish and it kind of put me off anvil type ones.

I'm waiting for my current ones to break so I have an excuse to replace them. Unfortunately my mate Paul is usually busy at weekends these days, so it may be a while before they bust.

 

So where do we mere mortals find these ?

Jack McHammocklashing

 

I put a link to thei online storefinder in post #5 above: