Marden Sprue Nippers
Single-edge flush cutter, 5 mm capacity
$46.00
USDStandard shipping $6.00, free over $75. Arrives in 3-6 business days. 30-day returns.
A single-edge cutter has one ground bevel closing against a flat anvil face, rather than two bevels meeting. The difference on the part is obvious the first time you use one: a two-bevel cutter wedges the plastic apart as it closes and leaves a whitened, stressed stub, and a single-edge cutter shears it and leaves a face you can often use without sanding at all.
It is the most expensive thing in this catalog for its size, and it is the tool we would tell someone to buy first after a handle and blades. The reason is not the cut quality on its own - it is that a clean cut removes a sanding step from every single part in a kit, and a kit has hundreds of parts.
It is also the most fragile thing here. The edge is ground thin enough to close nearly flush, which means it will chip on anything harder than plastic. Cut one piece of brass wire with it and it is finished. That is not a defect and it is not covered by the return policy, so it is stated here as plainly as we can put it.
The specification
Everything we know about this item, stated plainly. The same record is printed on the card in the box.
- Fits
- Cuts styrene, ABS, resin and soft polyethylene sprue up to 5 mm in diameter. Jaw closes to within 0.1 mm of flush, so the cut face usually needs no more than a pass with a fine sanding stick.
- Service life
- Two to four years of regular kit building before the edge stops shearing cleanly, if it is only ever used on plastic. The check is a strip of 1 mm styrene sheet: cut it, and look at the cut face under a light. Clean shear means the edge is good; a whitened, crushed edge means the bevel has rolled and the tool is now a rough cutter rather than a finishing one.
- Composition
- Forged high-carbon steel, cutting face hardened to 58-60 HRC and ground to a single bevel closing on a flat anvil. Box joint, coil return spring, dipped PVC grips.
- Dimensions
- 125 mm overall, jaw 15 mm, handle span 55 mm at rest
- Weight
- 62 g
- Made
- Forged, ground and assembled in Niigata, Japan; jaws matched and set by hand before the joint is pinned.
Fitting & care
- Cut plastic only. That is the whole of the care instruction and everything else is detail.
- Cut with the flat anvil face against the part you are keeping, and the bevel against the waste.
- Let the spring open the jaw rather than forcing it - the box joint takes a set if it is sprung wide.
- A drop of light oil at the joint twice a year; nothing on the cutting face.
Cautions
- Not for metal of any kind. Not brass wire, not photo-etch fret, not staples, not the steel axle in a kit. One cut in metal chips the bevel and the tool will never shear cleanly again.
- Not for carbon fibre rod or glass-filled nylon, both of which are abrasive enough to round the edge in a handful of cuts.
- Not for sprue thicker than 5 mm. Cut oversize gates in two bites from the sides rather than forcing the jaw.
- Not to be used as pliers. Any twisting load spreads the box joint and the jaw stops closing true.
Shipping
$6.00 standard, free over $75. 3-6 business days. Full policy
30 DAYS
Returns
Unused and in original packaging. Refunded within 5 business days of reaching us. Full policy
Questions about this product
hello@axonmodelco.comEvery message answered within one business day.
