Fiskars PowerGear2: A Review and a Giveaway!

I love to prune. I mean LOVE it. Ask my husband and his face will cloud over, because he hates pruning. He gets ouchy about it not because he actually hates the act of pruning; he hates that I love it so much. He isn't convinced that pruning trees and shrubs is altogether good for them. It's one of the Top Ten Things We Argue About. (I know you have silly things that you argue about with your significant other too, so stop laughing.)

When Fiskars, a company who has been in business for 365 years now (!!!), asked me if I wanted to try out some of their PowerGear2™ products, I got all giddy. It's not that we don't have any pruners or loppers, or hedge shears, because we do, but to get to try out some brand new ones? Let me have at 'em.

Here's what they sent:

PowerGear2™ Bypass Pruners

• PowerGear^® patented gear technology multiplies leverage to give you up to 3X more power on every cut
• Fully hardened steel blade stays sharp, even through heavy use
• Rugged DuraFrame^® construction provides superior strength and reduced weight
• Contoured, rolling handle fits the shape and natural motion of your hand for comfortable use and reduced hand fatigue
• Maximum cutting capacity: 3/4" diameter

PowerGear2™ Hedge Shears

• Powers through tough branches that traditional hedge shears struggle to cut
• 10" blades cut all the way to the tip
• Shock-absorbing bumpers help reduce the jarring conclusion at the end of cuts
• Tough steel construction with riveted handles offers lasting durability
• Rounded ergonomic handles with Softgrip^® touchpoints enhance comfort and control

PowerGear2™ Lopper (18")

• Patent-pending design with modified gears and cam mechanism optimizes your cutting power in the middle of the cut where the branch is thickest and you need it most
• Fully hardened steel blade stays sharp, even through heavy use
• Rounded ergonomic handles with Softgrip^® touchpoints enhance comfort and control
• Low-friction coating helps the blade glide through wood, prevents the blade from gumming up with sap and debris and helps the blade resist rust
• Bypass blade style
• Maximum cutting capacity: 1-1/2" diameter (Larger-sized PowerGear2™ Loppers allow cuts up to 2".)

I'd actually won a pair of PowerGear2™ loppers at the Chicago Flower and Garden Show, but that was in early March and with the weather we were having after we got home from that, not much pruning was being done. But I've had a chance to try these out for a little bit and here's what I think:

Overall, all three products I tried were easy to use and with one exception, I had no problems. These are quality tools that come with a Lifetime Warranty. What I liked most about them were the relatively light weight, compared to some I've used, and the mechanisms operated extremely smoothly.

We I had quite a bit of pruning to do on both trees and some flowering shrubs, so last week I really put the loppers and the pruners through their paces. Easy breezy, and I mean that. I've got a little bit of arthritis in my right hand (my pruning hand) and they both cut through what I was pruning so easily that there was no stress on those joints at all. Fiskars actually did an extensive study of how the human body interacts with tools and used what they learned to ergonomically design these tools for the optimum comfort and performance.

Also, the non-stick surface of the blades made cleaning them a breeze. That was especially important to me with the hand pruners. It seems like I'm always cutting something close to the ground or unfortunately, using them in a closed position to dig dandelions out. (Yeah, I know, pruners aren't supposed to be used for digging, but when they're in my hand and there's a dandelion...) With the spring we've had and all the rain, mud happens.

I only used the hedge shears a little bit, because we really didn't have a lot of that type of work to do just yet, but I found them to be just as smooth to use as the other two tools.

I mentioned one problem earlier, and that was with the hand pruners. I'm a hand pruner hussy, in that I will try any pruner that I can get my hands on. You can never have too many pruners, right? I've tried a LOT of them and I have my favorites. I'm still getting used to these, because they have this really cool ergonomic feature, in that the handle rolls as you squeeze them shut, to help eliminate blisters and hand fatigue. That's different and it feels different.

The pruners, I think, must be designed for a larger hand than mine (which is small), because I felt the need to hold them closer to the blade than I think was intended. I say this, because more than once when I squeezed them shut to prune, I caught the fleshy part of my index finger in the rolling mechanism and it pinched. To be fair, I've had a similar problem with another brand of pruners (in about the same position of the handle), so I think it must be more me and the way I hold them than it is the pruners. But I wanted to mention it. I'm going to keep using them though, because they really do perform well, and perhaps I'll get over that pinching business.

That said, Fiskars is allowing me to give away five pairs of the PowerGear2™ hand pruners!  

FIVE!

So if you want a chance at winning a pair of them for your very own, just leave a comment to this blog post and tell me, yes or no, if you like to deadhead/prune your flowers or not. Some people hate the job, and some people love it. I love it, but if you hate it, you're probably going to want these to make quick work of it.

When you leave a comment, be sure to also provide a way for me to contact you, should you be the winner. (Email address is fine.) The giveaway will run until midnight EDT, Sunday, June 28, 2015. I'll use Random.org to randomly pick five winners from all the comments. Good luck!

Giveaway rules here.

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Fiskars sent me the three tools featured above for purposes of testing and review. All opinions stated here about the tools are my own, based on my experience with them. No further compensation of any kind was given. This blog post contains my affiliate links for Amazon. If you decide to purchase anything through these links, I thank you. It won't cost you any more, but it may add a few cents to my account.