Jonard Electrician Scissors
When I used to work on cabling (fiber optic and copper) in the field, I found the most frequent tool I reached for was my electrician's scissors. Over the years, there have been a few "improved" versions, but nothing is nearly as comfortable and useful as the old, all-metal kind. Heavy, thick and blunt, these can take a lot of abuse and can do a lot more than cut. They have two notches for stripping small cables jackets. The edges on the backs of the blades are great for filing and scraping.
Since they are very rounded and short you can carry them in your pocket easily, but they're still big enough to hold comfortably. A shortcoming of Leatherman-like tools is that getting out the scissors can be a pain. When you need scissors, usually you only have a single free hand. These fix that problem. I always have a pair on me. I now mostly use them for clipping cable ties, cutting lengths of string and rope, opening boxes, trimming plants around the house, and especially opening blister-packs. For my work, they were perfect for lacing down structured cabling and dressing cables into a computer or telco rack. We have to scrape paint from the racks to get to bare metal in order to fasten grounding cables, so the filing part of the scissor is a real help. Almost nothing does as good as a job at quick paint-scraping for small areas -- and I've tried everything from 5-1 tools to a Dremel.
There are a variety of brands that still manufacture old-fashioned electrician scissors. Klein's are easy to find in Home Depot, etc. The Jonard's aren't as common, but they're a bit beefier, have a blunted point that won't snap off, and a real nice edge on the back side.
-- Andrew Metcalf
Jonard Electrician Scissors
$11
Available from Grainger
Previously available from Amazon
Manufactured by Jonard Industries Corp.
Favorite (15)
AL
I too always have my snips with me. This is the most useful tool I own besides a good knife.
I use the 2 AA mag lite holsters to carry mine. It lets them sit below the belt line, close to the body. Always handy for use. Could also serve as a self defense weapon. Great Post. (Refered by Survivalblog.com)
AL
Calvin Jenkins
I do not like this new set-up. After all these years, probably in the name of, what? Graphic 'enhancement', ad clicks, spending more time on site? Whew! Could the option to select the "old" style been made available? Cal.
Jeff Jewell
When I was graduating high school, almost 30 years ago, an older friend of mine worked for "the phone company". He had been a lineman, and called those scissors "lineman scissors".
Well, as a graduation gift, he gave me one with the holster and all. It is the Wiss brand, which as you probably know, is pretty well known for their scissors. Here is a link to it, but for some reason they don't show the little holster.
http://www.acehardwareoutlet.com/(rpwsv23vyu5gfwaxk3y5brzo)/productdetails.aspx?sku=998006246&source=GoogleBase
Wiss is one brand that I know that a very big telephone company bought for their linemen, and I've been happy with them for all these years.
They have been every bit as useful as the article says. I have used them literally thousands of times in the last 30 years. I even bought a pair of Kleins, which seem to be about exactly the same, just to have one in the toolbox and one handy. I'm tempted to carry it on my belt as the reader did.
Oryctolagus habilis
I've never tried electricians' scissors, but I always carry a pair of "crash" or paramedics' scissors when camping & gardening. Lee Valley.com (honestly, I don't work for them, but they're the only suppliers from within Canada of a lot of the things on this site!) sells them with the safety tab removed; they call them "clamshell scissors."