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HalfysReddit t1_iuoj245 wrote

The main thing is that instead of it being two blades with straight edges that "cut" something, it has two thicker blades with at least one of them being serrated. This in effect means the scissors "chew" through material instead of cutting it.

This means they're much better for cutting heavier things, like copper wire or sheet metal.

That being said, if you don't need to cut strands of copper wire on a regular basis, I might actually recommend gardening shears for most people's uses. They "cut" like traditional scissors, but have one flat and dull blade, and the handles are designed to give you mechanical advantage so you can cut fairly thick things like small tree branches. You can use them to cut anything you'd use electrician's scissors for, they just might not give you the clean edge on the copper wires for a very long time like you'd expect if you were an electrician doing that a lot with electrician's scissors. They're also just about as good as cutting sheet metal as tin snips are, while being much more versatile. Again, if you're not cutting sheet metal on a regular basis, you probably don't need a tool that's designed specifically for cutting sheet metal.

I wouldn't call myself a scissor snob but I do a lot of DIY things, my career is in technology, and I do a lot of camping. So I own at least like a dozen pairs of scissors and have used a bunch of other hand-held cutting tools.

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