I sharpen my loppers and hand pruners with a diamond sharpener designed for chef knives. This is the best buy because it has so much surface that it maintains it’s ability to sharpen a very long time. You need a good sharpener in the kitchen, so it is worth the higher price just to buy one for all your uses. I hate the ones they sell for hand pruners that you hold with a couple of fingers.
The good ones run for about $40 and are about 10" long or so with a handle. Medium grit.
So I tried the thornx pruners today and so far they seem good. No steal dulling , cut like a hot knife in butter. Today I cut nothing over 1/4 inch and just around 100 cuts of mostly mulberry and pears. Will keep you posted on how they hold up against ARS. We all know felco are very good pruners.
What do you mean by “steal dulling”?
Steel gets dull very quickly with cheap pruners in my experience. The quality of steel is different from one brand to the next and determines how well the tool holds it’s edge.
I see. I wouldn’t expect to need to sharpen after 100 cuts, but I’ve mostly used either high quality pruners, or such complete junk garbage that blade sharpness wasn’t the main concern.
Mulberry, osage orange, che are very hard wood so you know in a very short time.
On top of the reasons I use ARS shears is that the steel is exceptionally hard and the blades can take several days of constant use without becoming dull, but the harder they are to get dull the more you need a good sharpening tool.
The Silky Gomtaro saw blades are also made of very hard steel- so hard they can’t be commercially sharpened.
Drew, BTW, your ARS pruners look brand new, or better. Impressive.
Alan, Drew, do you use the ARS VS model with the rotating handle?
Part of that is me, leave them outside one night and well they look like any other. I clean them after every use, that really makes them look good. And a year old is not that old. I do use them a lot. I used them even in winter to cut fig cuttings.When i get a fig cutting I make a cut to expose wood, and remove any calluses so they root better. I score the root end with them too.
I don’t like rotating handles- they are a bad idea because they reduce leverage. The basic VS model does not tire my hands although day after day from Dec through March I’m constantly pruning during working hours- and then again from mid-July through Sept. although summer pruning is frequently interrupted with other tasks. . When I used Felcos after the first month my wrist often got so sore I could barely brush my teeth.
Just a little anecdotal evidence- it could just be coincidence, but the ARS felt good in my hands from the first time I tried the model.
Rotating handles are supposedly for ergonomic relief if you are pruning many hundreds of cuts a day. They do indeed lessen the cutting power of your hand. I don’t like mine–long story of not paying attention when ordering.
As for the best or good those with very good steel will be good pruners. Those that don’t will rust, dull and wear fast and get tiny burrs (indents) along the cutting edge. Other cheaply made ones won’t stay tightly together. Either condition results in failing to cleanly cut the branch.
I will try your tip drew as sap buildup is a pain on my pruners.
Even one cut puts sap on the darn things! The cleaner if anything removes sap well.
Any update on the Thotnx pruners?
The problem I have with my Home Depot cheap pruners occurs when pruning very soft material or wood with thin slipping bark. They sometimes tear the bark unless the blade is freshly sharpened plus tightened to the point of slightly binding. Time for an upgrade.
So far the thornx pruners have been excellent. The ARS pruners safety fastener quit working day 2 but they are also excellent quality. Blades on both are staying sharp with the ARS slightly sharper. The ARS literally cut paper after hundreds of cuts. The ARS are razor sharp and $10 more. The safety fastener works very well in the thornx.
I tried the Thotnx and I like them. Very sharp but I don’t know how they will hold up over time.
Have done all my top working of pears (which is 50+ small cuts per tree) with the thornx pruners and they are holding up excellent.They seem very well made. Hope they work out good for everyone else who tried them. So far i pruned 2 apples, several peaches, and top worked half a dozen pears with them.
Hello, one thing I look for is the thickness of the blade and if the blade and if the blade is made of high carbon steel. THe wider the blade the more force is needed to get thru the branch as it has to spread the wood as well as cut it. High carbon steel holds its edge better, but is more brittle and costly so manufacturers don’t like to use it for the whole pruner. I go for the removable high carbon steel cutting blade vs the one piece single units because of this, even the cheaper ones work better in my opinion than the more expensive single piece ones. Your can also take the blade off for sharpening which makes it easier to get to the bottom region. I use diamond sharpening sticks from OESCO, cheap and work well (I think less than $10 each), and thin so can get more of the blade surface without taking the pruner apart.
I wear out diamond sharpeners and you need one in the kitchen anyway, so a high quality, full lengthed, oval shaped, medium coarse one works best for me (I actually have a separate one in the kitchen and one in my truck). You get much more diamond dust for the buck in a full sized sharpener.
for me, this is the best pruner felco 7
http://www.felco.com/felco/pages/product.page?name=FELCO%207