Side cutters, important choices and decisions

Cutting Tools

with Geoff Coughlin

Another important question and decision you need to make, especially at the start or when returning to the hobby is what side cutters to buy?

Of course you always have options and there are dozens of brands and styles of side cutters available, all at widely different prices.

So what follows is what I recommend and some important decisions about what you should and shouldn’t do with these items.

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The right tool for the right job!

This really is a no-brainer I’m afraid.

I recommend buying a good quality pair of side cutters that will be used for removing all your plastic parts from their sprue frames. The Tamiya Sharp Pointed Side Cutter for Plastic is about the best on the market in my view. Since investing in one recently (I was unaware of its existence before!) its performance blows away anything else I have used to date.

The first rule of thumb here is that you absolutely get what you pay for and you’ll be incredibly pleased with your purchase. At the time writing, it may seem an expensive bit of kit, but you have to think about how much work it’s going to do?

Thousands of parts over many, many models and you’ll need precision to remove the parts from the sprue frame. It’s so easy to damage delicate parts by using the wrong type of cutters, or blunt cutters and so these flat-sided sharp-pointed side cutters are exactly what’s needed for all the parts removal.

So, even if you have been using your existing side cutters for a while and are thinking of replacing them, I’d go for a pair of these Tamiya ones.

A word of warning!

Don’t be tempted to use your best side cutters for anything other than removing plastic parts from the sprue. You are likely to damage the cutting edge and they will quickly become less effective and you run the risk of damaging parts just trying to get them off the sprue!

So what can I use for cutting wire, thin sections of brass rod or lots of other modelling tasks?

You can see here that I have 3 pairs of side cutters:

Best set – Tamiya Sharp Pointed Side Cutters – (black handles ones) just for removing plastic parts from sprues

A decent, but old pair of side cutters (orange-handled Xuron ones) that have worn edges and still work ok, but not really good enough for removing delicate parts from the sprue tree. These can still be used for cutting thin bits of wire and other tasks where I don’t want to use my best set. Also where I’m confident the task won’t damage the cutting edge.

A cheap pair of cutters – (red handled ones) I use these for heavy duty tasks like cutting thicker gauge wire and any number of other tasks.

Hope that’s helpful?

Good luck…
Geoff C.