Corona Long Reach Cut ‘n’ Hold Bypass Pruner (LR 3460): Product Review

If you’re looking for a supplement to your bypass hand pruners to get to those areas that are hard to reach, then Corona’s Long Reach Cut ‘n’ Hold Bypass pruner (LR 3460) may be for you. Think of it as a bypass hand pruner attached to a long stick with a handle at the end to activate the blades.

SPECIFICATIONS

• Overall Length: 46″
• Blades: High carbon steel
• Blade Coating: Non-Stick PTFE (helps prevent sap buildup and reduces cutting friction)
• Handle: Squeeze grip at end of the pole (opposite cutting blades). Top squeeze handle has rubberized grip.
• Foam Grip: 5 ½ inch long movable grip that slides up and down the aluminum shaft
• Cut ‘n’ Hold Feature: Holds onto stems until released
• Weight: 1 lb. ¼ oz.
• Shaft Material: Aluminum
• Stated Maximum Cutting Capacity: ½ inch

WHAT IS “CUT ‘N’ HOLD”?

Conventional bypass or pole pruners have blades that cut through a stem or branch, letting the cut part drop to the ground or into the canopy of the tree or shrub that you’re pruning. If the pruning debris gets caught in the canopy, you’ll have to fish it out with a rake, stick or another implement lest you have a bunch of dead, unsightly stuff left in your trees or shrubs. This can be a complete pain in the butt if you’re doing a lot of pruning and have to do all that extra clean-up.

Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a pruning tool that held onto the branch after it was cut so that you could pull it out and toss it away from your pruning area? Well, Corona has developed such a product – it’s called the Long Reach Cut ‘n’ Hold pruner (LR 3460).

The Cut ‘n’ Hold pruner grips cut plant material with twin plastic jaws that are bolted on either side of the cutting blades.

Plastic jaws bolted to both the top and bottom blades hold the branch in place after it is cut

VIDEO

Check out the video below to see how the Cut ‘n’ Hold pruner works, as well as the key features.

EXTENDABLE HANDLE TO LENGTHEN YOUR REACH

The Long Reach Cut ‘n’ Hold pruner has an extendable handle that lengthens your reach so you don’t have to bend over or kneel to reach into a shrub (where you couldn’t easily reach without bulling your way into the area and possibly hurting yourself or snapping off pieces of the shrub). It also makes it possible to prune above your head without the use of a ladder or step stool and not have the prunings drop on your head.

The sliding foam handle let me extend my reach by up to 68 inches; just slide this handle up and down the shaft while holding the comfortable foam tube that surrounds the aluminum shaft.

I could reach out nearly 6 feet

To work closer in, pull the shaft backward, slide the foam handle forward and you basically have a regular bypass hand pruner.

With the handles fully retracted I could use the product like a bypass hand pruner

MAKING THE CUT

It’s critical that the plastic cutting jaws be placed so that they are on the outside of the branch you want to cut, and the cutting blades are facing toward the piece you don’t want to cut. If you reverse this procedure the plastic jaws will not grip the cut off branch, and you defeat the Cut ‘n’ Hold’s purpose – the cut piece will just fall to the ground.

Make sure the cutting blades are toward the remaining branch while the plastic jaws are on the cut side of the branch

CUTTING DIAMETER

The Cut ‘n’ Hold claims it will cut “up to a ½ inch” diameter material. However, I was only able to cut material in the ¼-inch realm. Like most cutting tools I’ve reviewed over the years, the stated maximum cutting capacity must’ve been based on very soft wood.

I would say that the practical limit of this bypass pruner is somewhere between 1/4 to 3/8 inch. But my experience with very similar long reach bypass pole pruners is that none of them to date have cut up to their maximum stated cutting diameter (so I didn’t lower my overall rating because the LR 3640 didn’t cut ½-inch mesquite branches).

And, as a final note, the sharper and more burr-free you keep the pruner blades, the cleaner the pruning cuts will be and the greater diameter material you’ll be able to cut through.

I recommend using the Corona SolidCARBIDE sharpening tool (AC 8300). It’s an inexpensive tool that does an excellent job at keeping your blades razor sharp and burr-free.

ROTATING CUTTING HEAD FOR PROPER PRUNING CUTS

Another nice feature of the Corona Long Reach Cut ‘n’ Hold Pruner (LR 3460) is that the shaft/blade mechanism rotates around the cutting handle grips. This makes it really easy to adjust the cutting angle to achieve the proper pruning cut.

All too often, I’ve seen improper pruning cuts that leave behind a stub (a piece of wood that sticks out from a branch that has been pruned and usually dies back over time). This is detrimental to the health of the shrub or tree as pests and disease can enter the tree through the stub.

Improper pruning cut leaving a stub

Stubs are especially common when using long reach pruning tools that don’t have an adjustable, angled cutting head. The nice thing about this Corona pruner is that the rotating shaft lets you easily position the cutting blades to make a proper cut.

Proper pruning cut

HOW TO ROTATE THE CUTTING HEAD

The design of the Long Reach Cut ‘n’ Hold gives you plenty of flexibility to make a proper pruning cut simply by rotating the cutting head.

To rotate the head, hold onto the handles (in either your right or left hand) so that the grip handles face straight down. Now spin the shaft in a clockwise direction. The shaft will rotate 180 degrees (the cutting head will go from being right side up to upside down).

The sliding foam handle on the shaft can either be gripped tightly to perform this task or just holding onto the aluminum shaft alone will do the trick. I prefer the latter since I don’t have to grip so hard to achieve the same result. I also found that if I held the pruner in either hand and rotated the handles counterclockwise, I could achieve another 45 degrees of cutting angle.

OTHER FEATURES

The pruner is equipped with a locking tab, located between the two cutting handles, allowing you to safely transport the tool without the risk of accidentally cutting something.

Locking tab located on the handles makes for safe transport

There is also a rubberized grip on the top of the upper cutting handle. I found it provided excellent grip with both dry and wet hands. And the sliding foam handle on the aluminum shaft made for a very comfortable pruning grip.

Rubberized handle (top red portion of handle) makes for easy secure gripping

A sliding foam handle attached to the aluminum shaft made for comfortable pruning

The pruner is very light (only 1 lb. ¼ oz), so I could prune all day with this light weight.

WARRANTY

Corona offers a limited lifetime warranty against defects in materials and workmanship.

RECOMMENDATION

I liked this little bypass pole pruner very much. It let me work on low shrubs without stooping or kneeling, gave me extendable reach for larger shrubs and small trees, allowed for close-in pruning when needed and reduced the cleanup time considerably. It’s great for getting into hard to reach places, snipping off that piece of branch and extracting it without having to reach in with your arm and pull it out. Would I add this tool my tool arsenal? You bet I would!

WHERE TO BUY

The Corona Long Reach Cut ‘n’ Hold Bypass Pruner (LR 3460) is available on Amazon. It can also be purchased directly from Corona Tools.

Price Reduction

Corona Long Reach Cut n Hold Bypass Pruner LR 3460

I liked this extendable bypass pole pruner very much. It’s lightweight, makes clean cuts, and is comfortable and easy to handle.

$41.00
−$1.91
$39.09

See it on Amazon