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Powergear Anvil Lopper
by Oddbodd
A couple of years ago I had some seriously heavy duty cutting to do and the shears and loppers I owned just weren't up to the job. After hacking away and sweating for a couple of hours I decided it was time to purchase a proper tool which could hopefully make this job a lot easier for me.
So off we went down to B&Q and ... returned with these rather mean looking loppers and about £35 less in the wallet.
I couldn't wait to try them out on the huge laurels that needed chopping right back. When we moved house, the mature garden hadn't been trimmed for around 5 years. These loppers certainly had their work cut out! The laurels were like trees and we wanted them gone completely and that was just the start. Well, what a difference a decent tool makes! They cut through those laurel branches like a knife through butter. After having struggled with my old loppers, secateurs and shears, this was a delight!
That was their first job - since operation laurel they have been used for the removal of many a mature plant. The manufacturer says they have a cutting capacity of up to 50mm, I would say that at that thickness they can cope but you might have to do it in a couple of goes, whereas up to about 30mm it's a piece of cake (or, like cutting a piece of cake!)
The handles are long - the length of the entire tool is about 70cm - so it is easy to reach fairly high branches although of course if you need to go very high you are going to need telescopic loppers (or a ladder!)
Because they cut so easily I find it relatively easy to cut at awkward angles since it is only necessary to get a vague grip - because they are so sharp and strong they will cut from all sorts of angles if need be.
They grip securely and give a powerful cut due to the gear action mechanism which 'increases cutting power and distributes it evenly throughout the cutting action'. Well I certainly find them less strenuous to use than previous loppers I have had.
They are made of fibreglass reinforced polyamide which makes them lightweight as well as strong. The grip part of the handle is made from a slightly softer material which makes them quite comfortable to hold. I have used these for hours of cutting at a time and have found them a pleasure to use - in fact I find myself a little disappointed when I've done the big branches and the time comes to put them down and switch to the secateurs or shears!
After a couple of years they still do just as good a job as when we first bought them. I have never had to adjust or tighten them, they remain just the same.
(Review also appears on Ciao)
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Yeoman Ratchet Loppers
by rosebud2001
I have said before in reviews I have written that I haven't had a garden for years so as such my gardening skills are somewhat rusty. My current home includes garden maintenance in my rent but occasionally I like to do the odd bit of pruning myself.
The hedges here seem to grow at an alarming rate during summer - actually I ... reckon all hedges do - and whilst they have been trimmed once since I moved in a year ago, if they aren't cut back fairly regularly they make walking past them rather difficult, never mind the fact they look dreadful.
Whilst in TK Maxx several weeks ago I spied a Yeoman Ratchet Lopper which was on sale for just £11. It seemed perfect for my needs but what appealed to me most (after the price) was the fact the loppers were so light.
~~The Loppers~~
These Yeoman loppers have a ratchet mechanism which gives you a progressive cut, enabling you to lock the blades onto a branch before cutting with two or three squeezes of the handles.
The loppers are made from nylon fibreglass and as a result they only weigh one kilogram, which is significantly lighter than the old loppers I owned when we lived in London. They are 55 centimetres long and have shock absorbent grips.
~~Opinion~~
These loppers are easy enough to use on hedges and I was impressed at how well they worked when pruning back my hedge. They are easy to hold, with soft plastic yellow and green handles.
The loppers have a safety catch which is keeps the blades firmly shut when the loppers are not in use. The catch is easy enough to release by pressing the handles in together slightly and then releasing it.
When it comes to cutting using the loppers it's worth bearing in mind that the actual blade is quite small, measuring just over two inches. Also, where you locate the loppers before cutting is important - if you place the branch or piece of hedge you want to trim right at the inner corner of where the blade sits they won't work properly as the blade is curved and as such is blunt in that corner.
The ratchet mechanism is excellent however in helping you locate the loppers precisely where you want to cut and moving the blade in for the cut in stages. I found this particularly useful when hedge trimming as it enabled me to trim with a degree of precision I haven't had with older tools. The loppers are quite noisy in use because of the ratchet but this shouldn't be a problem except if you do lopping at night!
I have used the loppers on a bush outside my mother's house too and they coped well with the much thicker stems on there with relative ease. Yeoman claim that the loppers can cut stems up to 20mm in diameter and certainly the stems on the bush at my mother's home are not far off that in size. I did have to stick to one stem at a time on her bush whereas when I was trimming my hedge with far thinner stems the loppers could cope with a few at a time.
Because the loppers are quite short and don't have telescopic handles they are best suited for use on lower hedges and bushes. I don't have particularly high hedges in my garden so don't need the handles to extend but it's worth pointing out they do have limitations.
After I have used the loppers I always take the advice Yeoman give and wipe the blades clean and ensure they are dry before storing the loppers. Yeoman also advise you should spray with a light oil regularly which makes sense when you consider the ratchet mechanism.
I have to say I have been very impressed with these Yeoman loppers and am delighted I managed to pick them up for such a reasonable price. The recommended retail price of £25.49 is quite high but for the benefit of such a light tool I think it's a price worth paying.
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Homebase Anvil Bypass Lopper
by dee778
After yet another summer of balancing precariously on to of the stepladder, pruning shears in hand, I decided it was time to make my life a bit easier and buy some long handled shears to reach the top branches of my Buddleia. Looking around Homebase at the wide variety of shears and loppers available, I wondered why I had not invested a ... bit of money a long time ago. Long handled shears, ratchet loppers, heavy duty loppers - the choice seemed endless!
I initially had to analyse my needs; I did not really need any heavy duty loppers - I just needed to reach the high branches and climbers that had got out of control. I also needed something that would store away neatly. For this reason I chose a telescopic lopper, and I also chose to buy a Homebase own label as it was a little bit cheaper but I knew from experience that it would be a reliable quality product. I paid £20.99.
~~Advantages~~
The main advantage to this lopper is its reach; when the handles are fully extended they can reach to any length up to 79cm. To put this in context, it makes my arms twice as long. At their smallest length, the handles are 45cm long - a very managble length for normal cutting and pretty much the length of an ordinary pair of garden shears.
The handles are very easy to extend - holding the green rubber handles, turn each handle away from the other (ie the left one anti clockwise and the right one clockwise). Although this sounds complicated, it really is a very instinctive and natural motion and is helped initially by arrows on each handle with the word 'Open' to indicate the direction that you need to twist. The handles can be extended to any length up to the maximum and locked into place by twisting both handles the opposite way. Once they are locked into place they do not move or slip at all.
The second thing that I really like about this lopper is the power that it gives me. I do not naturally have very strong arms, and often struggle to chop and saw thicker branches. This lopper has very strong carbon steel blades in the stumpy head - and these are very sharp. It is not just the blades that give me the extra strength though - it is the force that I can put through the handles that seems to enable the blades to glide through almost every branch. Even the thicker branches can be fairly easily cut and I am amazed when the blades get through - even though it may take two or three pushes on the blades. The blades also have been treated with a non-stick coating - which may help them to glide through the raw new wood.
~~Disadvantages~~
The downside of this lopper is that my newly found superhuman strength does not enable me to hold the loppers in the air for any length of time. They are fairly heavy at 1.8kg, and initially I did not think that I would have any problems in using them. However, once my arms are extended I really feel the strain of holding them and guiding them to the right place to cut. Even after cutting a small number of clematis tendrils that have grown high up on my fence, my hands shake uncontrollably. I often have to stop cutting after just a few cuts because my arms are complaining so much.
Thinking that it was my wimpy feminine physique, I asked my husband to take over - but he said that he too found the loppers extremely difficult to hold upwards, and he more sensibly got a tall ladder out so that he could chop in a horizontal position rather than a vertical one.
~~Conclusion~~
These loppers tick a lot of boxes; a reasonable price, sharp and powerful, fully telescopic, robustly built. After a couple of years of fairly heavy use they remain sharp and efficient - and the telescopic arms still work very well with no slippage or sticking.
I am going to take 1 star off for the weight. It really is a disadvantage when using them, and I guess that if a lighter metal had been used for the telescopic arms, this would have gone some way to solving the problem.
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