Fiskars Cuts+More 5-in-1 Multi-Purpose Scissors

When I first saw these Fiskars Cuts+More Multi-Purpose Scissors,I was pretty excited.They look like a pretty serious pair of scissors with their black titanium blade that looks more like a knife than a scissor blade.In addition to being regular scissors,they are billed as being multi-purpose and can do everything from open bottles to cut wire,so they sounded like a perfect item to try out and share with you here.

The first picture you saw above was the of the Fiskars Cuts+More Multi-Purpose Scissors without their protective sheath,and in this picture,you see that sheath placed back on the blades.There are two interesting features built into the sheath.On the top side you can see two slots with a white bar in the center that is used for sharpening(there will be a better photo later)and below you see a small shark-like fin that sticks out which is supposed to be able to slice through packing tape on boxes.My first pass with the fin to cut packing tape went fairly well,but multiple other attempts did not go as smoothly.Although the tip of the tape cutting feature is fairly pointy,the part of it that scoops backwards is rather blunt,and you almost need a running start to get it to actually slice through the tape.In a far too frequent number of attempts,the tape cutting feature actually just bunched up all of the tape rather than slicing through it.

Another well-intentioned feature of the Fiskars Cuts+More Scissors is that the handles separate so you can have additional features like this bottle opener,although you dont really have to separate the scissors to use the bottle opener.Taking the scissors apart like this is very easy,although the drawback is that if you open the scissors to a fairly wide position,they begin to separate and get jammed up.Fortunately,the bottle opener seemed to work flawlessly though because I was beginning to get disappointed with these and figured that a beer might be in order.

The next photo shows the other blade which has several features including a wire cutter,and the unfortunate"power notch"which is the large scoop that you see towards the left side of the blade.The power notch was intended to assist in cutting things like thicker cord or rope,however to me it seems to be the downfall of the scissors.The first issue with the power notch is that it breaks the smooth point of contact along the blade's edge that you would normally get when slicing cleanly through a sheet of paper so it sometimes creates almost like a second point of impact when cutting.The second larger issue with the power notch is that if you try to cut a perfectly straight line with these scissors,it is almost physically impossible to do.I tried multiple times using a ruler and a sheet of paper only to find that almost every time the section of the blade with the power notch leaves an outward bulging curve along the edge of what you are cutting.See below for a picture that captures the point a little better.

You can probably see the small curve that extends to the left of the blue line without enlarging the image above,but it is much more evident if you click on the photo to see it in larger detail.Obviously I think it goes without saying that if you have a pair of scissors that can't cut a perfectly straight(minus human error)line,then you have a pair of scissors that you would probably consider faulty.

I promised a better picture of the sharpening tool built into the sheath,so here it is.The slots hold the scissor blades at the correct angle so you can slide them in and out to sharpen them.Again,great idea and visually well designed,unfortunately I probably wont use these enough to ever contemplate needing to sharpen them.

The first time I saw these scissors was on one of those sites that finds cool items,then throws up a paragraph about how cool they LOOK,without ever really using them in most cases,so let this serve as a warning to you if you frequent those kinds of sites.Personally I am a big fan of some of those sites because they do manage to dig up some really awesome products,however you should probably do your own research before being so excited about something that you just dive in and buy because they LOOK cool.I'd love to see Fiskars resolve some of these issues because I don't think that they are design hurdles that can not be overcome,and I am sure that a second version of these scissors could be a huge hit.For now though,I'd call them mediocre at best as a"multi-tool"because extra features like the bottle opener actually function better than the primary feature which should be the ability to smoothly cut a straight line.