we've just seen there the Knipex step cut and it suggests it saves you forty percent and we
like that at eFIXX yeah that's 40 effort Gary not necessarily time so it's not going to make
it faster it's going to make it easier for us and we've been practicing these
off camera and i damaged my wrist as a younger man before you jump in there with any comments
and that was playing golf and we found off camera didn't we that i really struggled with a
you know with a set of side cutters in order to cut the cables that we use the step cutter
for so should we take a closer look at this step cut yeah so a little look to see the difference
between a regular pair of side cutters so there's some obviously so i've got a straight blade
but then we will look at the step cutter it's got this serrated blade here which is the the
key to that 40 effect reduction now it was designed to work on what's termed nym cable
crossing across in Germany so this is a common installation cable which we don't use over here
so we'll try it out on this but then we'll check it out on the cables that we use okay so i'll just
open up our step cutter so that step in action then means that we're going to cut through the
conductors not all at the same time we're going to cut through them as we go and that's where
you get the step from yeah and you'll hear it as i go so i'm just going to start now
yeah you can hear it in cutting the individual cores so that's uh that was easy now just for
obviously fairness i'll try it with a pair of side cutters maybe watch from a distance here because
we can watch some effort going on here yeah yeah how's it going it's uh yeah it's so there's a good
thing after i don't have to cut them sequentially but munch through i mean all that there we go and
there's a bit of ricochet okay having gone across the workshop there the effort in the wrist though
is completely different is it they're saying 40% but that went through effortlessly with the step
cut but importantly look at what it's done to the cable so a little look
so it's now not a round cable anymore it's a sort of squashed squash cable so
yeah you'd have to adjust that if you're then going to put this through some sort of cable
gland or something like that and the step cut is designed for copper and aluminium conductors and
don't go anywhere near a steel wire armored cable no i'm not yeah i wouldn't suggest trying to cut
steel wired armored and it does look like we've got some steel wire armored cable down here but
we've actually got the equivalent that we're going to try and cut that we'd have in the uk
when we won't be having this type of cable which we see on the continent yeah so not nym yeah we
don't use that so let's try it on some cables that we have in the workshop so here's some uh
uh i was getting this wrongis this the tuf sheath it is
in europe would be known as nyy or certain wholesalers sell it as that but
we use this a lot what are you going in with first uh i'll just sort of step cut so watch this
let's just kind of look at the end once you've got the next one come one more
okay yeah yeah it's kept around there because it can go up to is it four millimeter squared
five conductors isn't it that's what we looked at previously so that's obviously
well within its limits yeah so again i'll try to side cutters on this just so again it's not
difficult to cut with side cutters but again look at what's done with the shape of the cable okay
yeah squashed it but okay yeah right Gary go up to four millimeters so i couldn't find any five core
but what i could found is this EV ultra cable which is uh three by four millimeter conductors
plus a data cable in there right okay so we're looking at about the maximum diameter being 15
mm that we can work with yeah so we're about there about there with this so let's just uh
just try with the step cut so again you have to open the jaws fully to get this
in wow that was uh i make that look easy don't i you do yeah so that's on its home
turf though isn't it yeah so just uh just hold on back with the side cutters again
okay so i'm going for both hands yeah i'm not going to do it in a one
i'm going to do it yeah and again with uh look out there ricochet and yeah i mean look squashed what
a mess yeah what a mess no we're not suggesting that a normal set of say croppers wouldn't do
this but it's the stepping action we want to get over to you by not cutting all at the same time it
obviously makes it considerably easier and i think we could hear and see the effort was less with a
step cut wasn't it see the effort yeah first time in a long time we've seen any effort from Gordon
now it's probably going to be used also on cables like this especially on the continent up to they
say 50 millimeter squared on this fine stranded as yeah so this is uh yeah it's like a tri-rated
cable so again there we go i'm going to bring the camera in because that that is easy what size is
that is that 16 millimeter square 16 millimeter yeah class 5 conductor okay the light you just
once you've cut that in we're probably going to put a ferrule on it aren't we yeah which obviously
yeah if you don't put a ferrule on it you do want it to stay round round so again in with
our regular side cutters more effort and i've now got a sort of flattened conductor which yeah if it
was going to be ferruled you would never happen to be a little bit more trouble there adjusting
that back to where it should be okay we've got the uh chrome plated version yeah yeah we haven't we
and they do other versions as well don't they yes but uh yeah i guess the one for europe is this VDE
tested to a thousand volts and it obviously matches the other ones in your in Knipex bag
and they're similar size just a set of side cutters that's 160 mm long aren't they yeah for
compact now but what was the the last one Knipex asked us to try or we suggested we'd like to try
it on some meter tails and recently having some work done so we thought we'd pass it over to our
tame electrician to see what he thought of them on some meet the tails
so let's see how Eddie's going to get on with this Knipex step cut then he's already done two
so there's a little play around with it to start with it's got one more line conductor here to
have a go out let's see how easy it is to cut in Gordon he's got the power gloves on yeah here we
go let's make it 40 easier as well well that did look easier though didn't it did that was easy
i think he's going to use it now a little novel approach i think he's going to remove the pvc for
terminating purposes now or using testing there's a cable stripper as well a ringing tool here of
some sort i want to get through to conductors so try not to damage the copper i think he's done
that okay he's happy with the length oh what now he's going to go for one layer of pvc now is he
oh well okay a bit of fine adjustment here calibrated hands especially those
gloves on as well so we popped that off that was beautiful wasn't it just popped out of the way
so he's uh he's in and uh ready to terminate then his feedback was wasn't it that um he got he got
used to it after he did a couple of three of them when it was opening them up wasn't it that was the
the issue initially yeah but i think you can say we can cut meter tails with those quite
easily yeah without any effort massive thanks to Eddie from Pegasus electrical for doing a
little field test for us there and he said it was easy for them to use it was just that opening up
that was a little bit tricky wasn't it yeah it is because yeah when you when you're obviously
going for a larger diameter cables you do have to obviously the tool there is fully opened out
to get around the cable in the game once you run it that's step motion yeah deadly easy yeah
yeah and that's what he said didn't he he took a couple of attempts and then once he got used to it
it was like yeah lovely nice clean cut now obviously well i might as well just just
since we've been doing this throughout this video i might as well try with the
side cutters let's let's watch yeah so let's just my wrist wouldn't do this
yeah how's it going not very well i'll probably do a little bit of time
when you couldn't find your croppers that's probably what you did didn't you a little
bit of time how's the effort going it's a lot of effort and i'm not getting very far
i've just destroyed everything off the bench yeah so if you look at uh
well let's just compare the two ends then Gary let's have a little look so yeah sort of yeah
mine are nice on there yeah that's a bit a bit messy and did take a lot of effort yeah i don't
know whether anyone noticed yeah you wouldn't be doing that all day you would yeah repetitive
strain injury well i don't know yeah you used to get that on the golf course Gary we've heard about
it yeah yeah but you spotted there and i have got a week and left wrist that's that's not a joke and
that was it was easy i punched through those not a problem at all so the step cutter or step cut i
keep adding that on the step cut makes life easier because it's not going to cut it all at the same
time it's going to do it in stages but as always we want your feedback are you currently using
this tool and you think it's excellent is there something we haven't mentioned that you've got as
a top tip and you want to add it to the comments below were you thinking of buying the Knipex step
cut in the future and you've watched this video and maybe that's something you're going to do
we'll get back to as many of those comments along with Knipex as we can so leave them below