First, I would actually give this tool a 4.5 star rating but Amazon does not make that possible.

Three years ago I was hit with cancer. And for the last three years have been on heavy drugs that have made it impossible to trim my Sweet Viburnum hedge rows. So they have continued to grow toward being trees. Now that I’m finished with the medications and have some of my strength back, and before the cool spring days in Florida turn into those of our hot summers, I needed a tool that I could top the thick limbs of the hedges that my trimmer won’t cut. That’s when I found this extension lopper.

I tend to read the negative reviews first and saw that these loppers look great, and tend to work fine until someone puts too much torque on the handles. Those handles are only affixed to the cutter by a light plastic coupling. This is the weak part of this tool and a poor design decision to save a few pennies. A metal coupling should have been used instead. So if someone really chomps a limb quickly with lots of arm strength, all of that energy does not have time to evenly dissipate and splits the plastic coupling.

Knowing this ahead of time, I went ahead and ordered the lopper and through Prime got it quickly. I liked the idea of extending handles so I don’t have to extend “myself” over a ladder. My first impression was that the tool was designed and built well, all except for that weak spot. It is light weight and that’s great for my 70 year-old arms. The blade is made well and after first use, proved to be very sharp, truly passing through 1″ limbs with no problem. 1.5″ limbs required a little more power and I found that slowly squeezing the handles while working the blade back and forth a bit was able to slice through the wood.

But the design flaw was obvious. So as I have had to do with other tools in the past, I got creative and came up with a solution. For the amount of work I’ll use this for, this works fine for me. I simply put a hose clamp on each of the plastic couplings. This adds integrity and strength to the plastic. A metal coupling would have worked better and only cost the manufacturer a few cents more. So far, this has worked great for me and I can tell that the handles are now much more secure with the cutter and will take more torque without splitting.

This solution may not be something you would want to do to a brand new tool. If not, just realize it’s weakness and don’t try to cut too thick a branch with this consumer grade lopper. Check out my photos for my upgrade to what is otherwise a great tool.

Light but sturdy, extending the handles is smooth and extends your reach.

It’s very sharp, comes with an extra blade and is extendable. Works very well.

Lightweight, very sharp, and easy to use. They arrived in time for after storm clean-up, so have been appreciated more than I knew!

Me gustó mucho su funcionamiento. Me permitió cortar ramas gruesas, alrededor de 4 cms sin problema alguno. Pude limpiar un área grande, que de otra manera me hubiera llevado el doble de tiempo con machete o con tijeras convencionales de podar. Como cosa negativa uno de los manerales se aflojó, pero pareciera que no estaba bien insertado, procedí a meterlo y parece que quedó bien. En ramas mas gruesas ya no las cortó y no quise forzar de mas; pero el filo y la operación en general, bastante bien

Quality construction, great features, lightweight, easy to use and very helpful seller