I bit the bullet 40 years ago and bought a top quality set of diagonal cutters made by Starret and they are still in excellent condition and cut as good as they did on day one. I use them for cutting wire in the shop for restringing. In the field, I don't want to carry a specialized cutter just for occasional use, so I use the cutter on a 4" vice grip which I also use to secure the wire when tying knots to splice strings along with a variety of other uses. The best way to ruin a pair of needle nose pliers or cheap dags is to cut music wire with them. It's just too hard for a soft cutting surface. Top quality cutters with their highly tempered cutting edges won't get dull with use unless you are cutting something that is harder than they are. Jim ----- Original Message ----- From: wimblees at aol.com To: Pianotech at PTG.org Sent: Saturday, December 26, 2009 11:19 AM Subject: [pianotech] side cutters It seems that it's getting harder and harder for me to cut wire with ordinary side cutters. I know the solution is to get "real" wire cutters, but my question is, do side cutters get dull, or am I just getting weaker? I noticed the same thing with needle nose pliers with a cutter at the throat. If they are getting duller, is there a way to sharpen them? Willem (Wim) Blees, RPT Piano Tuner/Technician 94-505 Kealakaa Str. Mililani, Oahu, HI 96789 808-349-2943 www.Bleespiano.com Author of: The Business of Piano Tuning available from Potter Press www.pianotuning.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20091226/3d954e62/attachment.htm>
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