GPR RECOMMENDATION
Ease of Employ:
Quality:
Performance:
Final Thoughts
A powerful lopper that needs some tweaks to make it a cracking ane.
Featherbed loppers are a ubiquitous product these days, offered by a number of different companies in various styles, cutting capacities, and features. Centurion® kindly gave u.s. their Multi-Gear Lopper 2X (2-inch cutting capacity) for review.
SPECIFICATIONS
- Cut Caput Type: Bypass
- Cutting Head Drive: Geared (2-Gear Design to requite 2X cut power)
- Blade Cloth: High Carbon Steel
- Handles: Extruded aluminum, telescoping handles, plastic-like grips with rubberized blanket
- Blade Blanket: Teflon®
- Can Blades Be Sharpened: Yes
- Telescoping Handle Spread:
- Handles not extended: 44 inches
- Handles halfway extended: 49 inches
- Handles fully extended: 53 inches
- Bumpers: None
- Cutting Capacity: two inches
- Weight: 5 lbs. 5–¾ oz.
VIDEO
See Jack's initial thoughts about the design and operation of the Centurion Multi-Gear Lopper. This reflects the commencement set of loppers received and was not changed for the 2nd set of loppers I tested.
PACKAGING
Back facing packaging placard lists pruning tips, safety, and maintenance
The loppers arrived unscathed in a cardboard box. Attached by cable ties to the loppers, a placard presents the production features on one side and pruning tips, safe, and maintenance on the reverse side.
Push button-BUTTON LOCKING HANDLE EXTENSIONS
This is not my beginning rodeo when information technology comes to reviewing gear-powered loppers. One prissy feature the Centurion® lopper offers that many competitors don't are the telescoping handles. The telescoping handles give the tool the advantage of fitting into tighter spaces with the handles retracted, as well as tremendous leverage/cutting power with the handles fully extended.
When fully extended, the handle reaches an open spread of 53 inches, resulting in tremendous cutting ability/leverage
I as well like the "Pivot-Locking Button." It feels more secure with a pivot fitting into a slotted hole in the aluminum extruded handles, instead of relying on a friction cam lock or twist locking handles offered by competitors' products. (Yous tin see how this works in the video, above).
Pull and release, jump-loaded pins make for a tight and secure telescoping handle positioning
The gears of the lopper help cut large bore wood
MULTI-GEAR Pattern CLAIMS TO INCREASE Cut Power
I found that the Centurion® Multi-Gear Lopper 2X increases the cutting force necessary to cleave through big pieces of wood. I've reviewed loppers with no cam or "compound" cutting technology, and there is a big divergence between the two. If I'chiliad looking for a light-duty lopper for work in the ¾-inch bore range, so I'll use a non-compound/cam-action lopper. Just if I'm cutting the big stuff (ane to 2 inches) where I would consider using a pruning saw, and then I'll choose my leveraged loppers.
CUTTING CAPACITY
When I hear the word cutting "capacity" (the term used by Centurion®), I translate the term to hateful it definitely cuts to its stated diameter. (In this instance, 2 inches.) However, I only achieved ane-½-inch cuts in very hard southwest Mesquite woods. I thought I'd get closer to the expected capacity.
I was given a second set of Centurion loppers to test and I got the aforementioned results in the harder Mesquite wood.
The lopper cut 1 – ½ inch Mesquite wood
So, I tested the loppers on some other southwestern wood–-Palo Verde. It is a softer woods, and the loppers broken through information technology like a hot knife through butter. This was duplicated by the second gear up of loppers I tested.
Lopper number 1 and a second test lopper had no problem cut through two-inch softer Palo Verde wood
CLEAN CUTS
The Centurion® Multi-Gear Lopper 2X does non achieve particularly make clean cuts. I aspect this to three reasons. Beginning, is what I call "blade spread" (pic below) where the cut blade separates from the counter blade (the blade opposite the cutting blade) while the blades brand their way through the wood.
Blade spread makes for ragged cuts
2nd, the bract is non sharp all the way to the terminate of the lopper. If information technology's intentional, I don't know why. I accept used other loppers with a very like design, just in those instances the entire blade was sharp, making clean cuts. I'k pretty certain the dull office of the Centurion® lopper bract contributes to the ragged cuts and the burdensome of the branch (that disrupted the cadre of the branch and dissever it apart).
Editors Note: Centurion® sent me a second pair of loppers to test. The second pair had a sharpened blade tip. This fabricated for cleaner cuts in larger cloth when cut in the range of ii inches.
The second pair I tested had the aforementioned blade spread issues as the commencement pair I tested and in one example, when making a bias cut, the cutting blade bent into the counter blade so that the blades would non featherbed each other (the two tips of the blades hitting each other).
Section of the blade that is not abrupt. I recall this contributes to the decreased cut functioning. But afterward testing a second pair with a sharpened bract tip, information technology made a divergence when cut at the largest diameter forest capacity of the pruner.
Finally, the not-stick coating (Teflon®) wore off the blade after only a few cuts. This decreases the ease with which the blade passes through the wood.
Editors Note: The non-stick coating on the second pair of loppers stayed put. I cycled them through many more cuts than the original pair and there was no significant wear like the first pair.
The Teflon® blanket started to wear off after a few cuts
OTHER NICE FEATURES
The comfy handles fit my big easily, but they're non overly big, making it piece of cake for someone with smaller hands to use. The handles comprise a composite material, and a rubberized component coats the handle, providing excellent grip.
The handles are well-designed and comfortable with a not-skid grip
GOOD PRUNING INSTRUCTION ON PLACARD
Excellent pruning tips located on the back of the brandish placard provide keen benefits for the user. The critical pruning information protects the health and vigor of the plant. However, I would like to see a section on proper techniques to remove the main limb from a tree torso or a branch from a limb. (Limbs are the structures that adhere direct to the tree trunk. Branches radiate off the limb and make up the vast canopy of a tree or shrub.)
Demand FOR BUMPERS
Ane concern: the tool does not include bumpers or stupor absorbers built into the cutting head/handle interface. Bumpers take the "shock" out of the tool when the handles slam together at the completion of a cut. When cut larger material, bumpers are of import. I establish that the Multi-Geared Lopper was stiff and had little "play" in the system, making the stupor-load pretty severe when the handles came together quickly (such as using animate being force for big bore pruning cuts).
SPARE PARTS
At the time of this review, I found no data on replaceable parts. If you take intendance of your tool, information technology should concluding a long time. The only thing that will demand to exist replaced over time is the sharp-sided bract. It appears easy to replace past removing ii bolts. If your blade gets deadening or develops a burr, sharpen the bract and remove the burr from the counter bract. There are several excellent sharpeners on the marketplace today.
Prophylactic
Equally with all pruning tools, protect yourself. Wear high-quality gloves to avoid cuts and scratches. Wear quality safety glasses. Tools can suspension, branches can autumn, or an errant twig might poke you in the retina. Protect your eyes. We recommend these Wiley-X safety spectacles. Finally, if you lot're pruning over your caput, wear a hard hat. There are several brands available, but choose i that fits well and meets ANSI (American National Standards Found).
WARRANTY
Centurion® offers a limited lifetime warranty against defects in materials and workmanship.
RECOMMENDATION
I similar a few things about the lopper: the gear head for extra cut power; the telescoping handles for extra leverage on those hard-to-cutting, large-diameter pieces of wood; the comfy handles and rubberized grips; and the secure, spring-loaded pins that lock the extendable handles in identify. However, several improvements need to happen. First, Centurion might consider redesigning the cut caput to forbid blade spread. Next, they should sharpen the cut bract to the tip of the blade. Finally, information technology's recommended that they integrate bumpers into the tool. Compared with other loppers with telescoping handles and a featherbed caput, this is not my favorite. I experience information technology needs to become dorsum to the drawing lath for improvements.
Editors Note: Even though the sharpened blade tip fabricated a deviation in cleaner cuts and the anti-stick cloth stayed put, the blade spread issues even so were present and a biased cut saw the blade tips hit each other. I would have liked to give this lopper higher marks, but these two areas cancelled each other out. So as a result I kept the ratings the aforementioned.
WHERE TO BUY
The Centurion® Multi-Gear Lopper 2X can be viewed on the Centurion website At the time of this review there was non a buy link on the Centurion® website. We as well looked for it via a search of the spider web. The merely reference we could find was the 2018 National Hardware Show where there was fabricated mention that the product would be available in 2019. We'll update this review once the lopper becomes available.
Final update on 2021-12-04 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Production Advertizement API
