Preview: Greenlee Battery-Powered Steel Cutter
By Benjamen Johnson
Sick of carrying around bulky bolt cutters? This year Greenlee’s introducing a small and lightweight, battery-powered steel cutter. You could call the ETS12 battery-powered bolt cutters, but that wouldn’t really do the tool justice. The ETS12 can cut grade 8 bolts, threaded rod, grade 40 rebar, steel rod, ground rods, copper and aluminum cable, guy strand, aircraft cable, and other mild steel.
Greenlee designed this steel cutter to be very portable, at 4lbs and only 14-3/8″ long. It’s fast too — it’ll cut a 1/2″ diameter common bolt in four to five seconds. The compact cutter head swivels 350° to make cuts in hard to reach places. You can stop the cut at any point and retract the ram, or the ram will automatically retract after finishing the cut. With two batteries and up to 100 cuts per charge, don’t worry about running out of juice before the job is done.
With the ETS12 Greenlee will include two 9.6V Ni-Cad batteries; a molded carrying case; and a 12V, 120V, or 230V one-hour battery charger. As far as we can find, Greenlee hasn’t released any pricing information — in fact, there’s very little information about the ETS12 anywhere yet except Greenlee’s website.
ETS12 Steel Cutter [Greenlee]
Datasheet [Greenlee]
April 7th, 2008 at 11:41 am
Jobsite theives rejoice!
April 7th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
This would make a great ‘power’ replacement for a nut-splitter. I’ve worked on my share of older cars and sometimes a nut-splitter is a better alternative to an acetylene torch. If it’s got the ‘nards to get the job done and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg, I think this would make a good addition to my toolbox.
April 7th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Bicycle thieves rejoice!
April 7th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Well, I keep my commuter bicycle cheap so I won’t miss it too much when it gets stolen with something like this.
April 7th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
We have a couple of Benner Nawman rebar cutters. One is cordless (I think 18V) that can handle up to about 1/2 inch) The other is an electric/hydraulic that we use to cut #8 rebar.
Knowing Greenlee prices - and what we paid for the Benner Nawman tools - I’m guessing that the casual thief will first have to locate one of these to purloin before he steals any bicycles with it.
April 7th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Re Dan
This would make a great ‘power’ replacement for a nut-splitter. I’ve worked on my share of older cars and sometimes a nut-splitter is a better alternative to an acetylene torch.
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http://www.bt-andf.com/index.php
Cheak out this neat set of Grip-TiteTM sockets renches they work great on rounded of nuts and the have a vedio to view it
April 8th, 2008 at 7:40 am
That’s nothing, Cartridge-Actuated Cable cutters use an explosive round(firearm ammunition) to propel a blade through steel cable. http://www.cact-co.com/A4andA5.html
We keep one as emergency equipment on a boat I race on just in case we have to cut the 1/2 inch steel rod that holds the rig up.
April 8th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Dan Said:
“sometimes a nut-splitter is a better alternative to an acetylene torch.”
HERESY! Revoke his sledgehammer and pocket multitool!
Nothing is better than a smoke wrench.
April 9th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
This could be very usefull in places too narrow to open long handled bolt cuters.
May 8th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Dear Sir,
what i want to find out if you have already a europeen distribution for your product?
If not we can talk about it
best regards
philippe
belgium