Kent & Stowe Garden Life Bypass Secateurs 6.5” - Product Review

Review by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Kent & Stowe Garden Life Bypass Secateurs 6.5”: Hand crafted, precision cutting traditional bypass secateurs, drop forged with high quality carbon steel non-stick blades and a 5 year guarantee.

Ideal for deadheading, taking cuttings and pruning. For roses, shrubs & general pruning of green live wood up to a diameter of 10mm, that is just about a little under half an inch in old money. Also useful, obviously, for harvesting various produce in the vegetable garden. Please do not attempt to cut anything bigger as it will (1) hurt your hand and (2) could, nay will, damage the tool. The blade does have, as seem to have most bypass secateurs nowadays, a wire cutter incorporated at the usual place but it would just ignore those cutters.

Product Code / SKU: 70100780

RRP: £5.99

A lovely pair of little bypass secateurs (pruning shears) that have a nice olde-worldly feeling to it. Made entirely of steel with dark red rubber handles they are practical as well as elegant. Well balanced and great to handle.

While those secateurs were sharp right out of the box the rolled over wire edge could have done with deburring (something that quality control should have checked). Burrs left can cause minor chipping to the edge, as happened in this case. Maybe I am too pedantic having been sharpening tools such as this for a living and using them professionally. The pivot nut also needed tightening.

As those secateurs are entirely made from carbon steel – bar the spring, catch and pivot nut – they should not be left lying where they can get damp (rust really does not improve carbon steel tools) and for this reason, and for disease prevention, it is advisable to wipe the blades after use to remove sap. There is no need, however, to use expensive SAPEX or other such compounds. Cheap baby wipes (they are impregnated with lanolin generally) or a squirt of WD40 and a wipe with a rag will do too.

Rating: 4 out of 5 and the reason for not giving 5 out 5, as I would have loved to be able to do, is because of the fact that blade had not been cleaned up after sharpening and the pivot was too loose.

Review/Test sample supplied by Crest Garden.

© 2016