We are used to excellent products from Fiskars, but this one is not well-designed. In its first use, cutting off small pencil-sized suckers from a fruit tree, the blade and guard did not line up, and the blade caught on and was nicked by the lower guard, ruining the sharp edge. From time to time they seem to misalign themselves (even just opening and closing them without anything between), which causes the blade to catch on the guard and malfunction. The only positive is that the handles are easy to grip and not hard to close. We definitely won't be buying these again, they just aren't well-designed or well-made.