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Independent Tool Review
by Peter Brett - September 2007
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01444 440188
NWS Electrical Cutters
Super German Quality from Tools of the Trade
Using poor quality side cutters is a pain, literally, for me. The incipient arthritis in my thumbs won’t stand too much strain. However I am lucky. Every now and then I get to look at and try out tools that make me realize that although there will always be poor quality and badly made tools in the shops, there are also good ones available. Usually at a higher price it has to be said, but often worth it because of the time they will save you and the service you will get from them.
The NWS electrical side cutters from Tools of the Trade are just such a tool. A very basic one for most electricians I guess but also indispensable.
The functions that an electrician needs in a pair of cutters are actually quite varied considering the basic nature of the tool. Cutting, bending, crimping and shearing are quite possible using a simple sidecutter, but there are lots of downsides for the inexperienced, and even the experienced with a delicate touch get it wrong.
Take stripping the insulation off the end of a wire for example. I have done it many times using just a simple pair of sidecutters. But it needs a soft touch. Too much pressure and you cut through the wire and you have to start again. I guess I have a failure rate of about 25%. I am sure that real professionals could do better, but even they mess up sometimes. With the NWS cutters though, there are two options on the cutter jaws for insulation stripping, either 1.5mm or 2.5mm diameter electrical cable. Using these two options I was able to get a nearly 100% success rate, and the times that I failed it was because I was in too much of a hurry.
Crimping and bending is a similar story. Electricians have a constant need to shape and bend the short ends of electrical wires to fit into terminals. My experience of these terminals is that they are often in hard to reach spots or the wires themselves need to be bent so tightly to fit into the plug or slot that it is difficult to do it by hand. The NWS cutter’s functions for crimping and bending are right on the inside of the jaws where it is possible to get maximum leverage and control. Even 2.5mm copper wire turned back on itself quite easily using these functions.
Normally, to get the maximum cutting leverage, I cut wires at the back of the cutters nearest the fulcrum.
Because the crimping and bending functions are placed there this is not possible. But at the front of the jaws there is a generous 10mm or so of cutting blade, and this proved to be good enough for cutting copper wire quite easily. Getting the sharp points of the jaws into tight corners for that precision nip was also quite handy. Cutting galvanized coathanger wire was a different story, but why would and electrician be using cutters when a pair of pliers might be a better is a good question.
Another constant in the working life of many electricians is cutting the patress screws that hold the front onto plug and switch boxes. These screws are deliberately made longer to accommodate the depth of tiles or plaster into which the box might be sunk. But the screws can sometimes be too long and not drive home completely. Of course its possible to cut them with a mini-hacksaw, but that often means that the thread has to be filed clean to fit the receiving nut.
With the NWS cutters, there is a patress screw shear cutter behind the fulcrum. This simply shears the screw off cleanly, and nine times out of ten, the cut is so clean that no filing is necessary to make it screw in cleanly. Again, because the shear cutter is so close to the fulcrum, the amount of effort needed to cut the screws is the minimum.
I am sure there are those readers and retailers who will tell me that there are other products on the market that offer similar features, and indeed there are. I have tried some of them and they have performed very well. But what is different about the NWS cutters is that they are large enough to combine all six functions in one pair of cutters. To some users this may be a disadvantage, since they may prefer the ease of carrying of smaller tools. But for others, having six functions in one tool may be easier than carrying two or three pairs of cutters.
Added to that is the NWS cutters are made in Solingen, Germany, are fully tested and TUV approved (as all tools need to be) and also have a five year guarantee and you have an almost cast iron guarantee that the quality of what you are stocking as a retailer won’t be coming back to you as a complaint or dissatisfaction.
Independent Review by Peter Brett
Airstream Communications