- Location
- Oakland, CA
Allow me to Rave about the ARS Powerful Long Reach Pruner 180L-2.1 AKA Pole Snips:
I've had this in the toolkit for a long while.
7 ft long, nice and light and strong. 1/2 capacity, though I usually stay smaller with it. The blade turns 180 degrees while the handle stays steady in the hand.. Blade is always angled back inwards towards the user, thus perfect for being inside the tree and pruning tips of branches that are further out than you are - the cutting blade faces in, the counter blade out. It gets angles that saws and pull-string pole pruners can not. With smaller garden scale shrubs and vines, it allows the operator to stand back from the tree and see the form more easily from where it will be viewed. The angle of the blade can be a bit of a problem in these situations. As you will not always be able to get the blade to face in towards the cut, you are probably doing more damage the wood that remains on the stub.
I have added a hook to the snips end of mine for hanging and light pulling. I have also added a small loop of rope to the handle end for clipping into a short line attached to my saddle - it hangs below and can be pulled up any time.
I really appreciate this tool. It informs a lot of the way I do my work. Ergonomically, it is a good fit for me, and I am happy to sing it's praises. I do a lot of smaller urban aesthetic work and fruit/nut pruning, so a high precision device works wonders. But I also take it up into the oaks, the redwoods, some of the cypress - not every tree, but a lot of them. It can allow me to work areas that are too dense to climb in, on branches that are too far out to climb to, and tips too thin for a pole saw's wiggle.
The Pole Snips, however, have one fatal flaw - the whole darned thing is held together by a single tiny screw. This screw holds the handle in place and provides the "track" that the handle spins around to get the 180 degree rotation effect. The screw, so far as I could tell, was threaded into the main aluminum cylinder, which is thin-walled. With time (not very much time) the screw will strip out - a few hard drops (i *never* drop mine, of course, haha ;-) on the handle will do it. If you are lucky, you will not lose the screw when this happens. It is advised to place a piece of tape over the track so that the screw doesn't fall out completely. At a certain point, though, the screw will no longer hold in the stripped hole. That is where I am now. I tried a wad of epoxy on the inside that I could screw into, and that lasted a couple months. Then I tried a few layers of sticky Gorilla tape on the inside of the cylinder. The tape has a little hole to "thread" into and the turn of the screw seems to pull some tape up into the hole and hold it fairly steady. I still place a piece of tape over the track to keep the screw from falling out. Not elegant, but it worked for 3 months. Now the hole is totally stripped wide and nothing will hold the screw in that I can think of. And I haven't even run through my original blade yet. So it goes. I have now taped the handle in place and, other than the fact that I no longer have 180 degree rotation, it still works great. It actually cuts a little more with a little less effort without all the slop of the rotation system. But the way to really fix it is to get a whole new pole. With the same design flaw. Maybe there is a way to over come the flaw and make it more durable. I can't think of one yet.
Anyhow, thought I would share my enthusiasm. The tool has some durability issues on the long run, but I like what it does enough that I would go ahead and get another the next day if I ran over it with my truck. I have never gotten the hang or traditional pole pruners - the string gets in the way, the head is not angled for a better cut. So this works better for me. What I would really like, of course, is a tool like this that was a little burlier and a little easier to maintain for a longer time.
http://www.ars-edge.co.jp/world/02products/product_04longpru.html
the one i use is near the bottom.
hooray,
Pete
I'll now post some pics of my pole snips with their janky tape-engineered mods.
I've had this in the toolkit for a long while.
7 ft long, nice and light and strong. 1/2 capacity, though I usually stay smaller with it. The blade turns 180 degrees while the handle stays steady in the hand.. Blade is always angled back inwards towards the user, thus perfect for being inside the tree and pruning tips of branches that are further out than you are - the cutting blade faces in, the counter blade out. It gets angles that saws and pull-string pole pruners can not. With smaller garden scale shrubs and vines, it allows the operator to stand back from the tree and see the form more easily from where it will be viewed. The angle of the blade can be a bit of a problem in these situations. As you will not always be able to get the blade to face in towards the cut, you are probably doing more damage the wood that remains on the stub.
I have added a hook to the snips end of mine for hanging and light pulling. I have also added a small loop of rope to the handle end for clipping into a short line attached to my saddle - it hangs below and can be pulled up any time.
I really appreciate this tool. It informs a lot of the way I do my work. Ergonomically, it is a good fit for me, and I am happy to sing it's praises. I do a lot of smaller urban aesthetic work and fruit/nut pruning, so a high precision device works wonders. But I also take it up into the oaks, the redwoods, some of the cypress - not every tree, but a lot of them. It can allow me to work areas that are too dense to climb in, on branches that are too far out to climb to, and tips too thin for a pole saw's wiggle.
The Pole Snips, however, have one fatal flaw - the whole darned thing is held together by a single tiny screw. This screw holds the handle in place and provides the "track" that the handle spins around to get the 180 degree rotation effect. The screw, so far as I could tell, was threaded into the main aluminum cylinder, which is thin-walled. With time (not very much time) the screw will strip out - a few hard drops (i *never* drop mine, of course, haha ;-) on the handle will do it. If you are lucky, you will not lose the screw when this happens. It is advised to place a piece of tape over the track so that the screw doesn't fall out completely. At a certain point, though, the screw will no longer hold in the stripped hole. That is where I am now. I tried a wad of epoxy on the inside that I could screw into, and that lasted a couple months. Then I tried a few layers of sticky Gorilla tape on the inside of the cylinder. The tape has a little hole to "thread" into and the turn of the screw seems to pull some tape up into the hole and hold it fairly steady. I still place a piece of tape over the track to keep the screw from falling out. Not elegant, but it worked for 3 months. Now the hole is totally stripped wide and nothing will hold the screw in that I can think of. And I haven't even run through my original blade yet. So it goes. I have now taped the handle in place and, other than the fact that I no longer have 180 degree rotation, it still works great. It actually cuts a little more with a little less effort without all the slop of the rotation system. But the way to really fix it is to get a whole new pole. With the same design flaw. Maybe there is a way to over come the flaw and make it more durable. I can't think of one yet.
Anyhow, thought I would share my enthusiasm. The tool has some durability issues on the long run, but I like what it does enough that I would go ahead and get another the next day if I ran over it with my truck. I have never gotten the hang or traditional pole pruners - the string gets in the way, the head is not angled for a better cut. So this works better for me. What I would really like, of course, is a tool like this that was a little burlier and a little easier to maintain for a longer time.
http://www.ars-edge.co.jp/world/02products/product_04longpru.html
the one i use is near the bottom.
hooray,
Pete
I'll now post some pics of my pole snips with their janky tape-engineered mods.
