The tools you can’t live without

[Promethius]

I went for a drive last week with my tool roll on top of the car. It turns out that maintaining tools regularly is less important than not leaving them somewhere on the M3.

Silver lining - I’m now in the interesting (if expensive) position of needing to buy nearly everything from scratch. My erstwhile tools were built up from sales days and a couple of online purchases from no-name manufacturers, and I’ll be looking for quality this time around.

This makes one question: which tools are really the most important? And which are worth spending more on? I've come up with the following.

Essentials / most used:
- Trimming shears
- Branch cutters (straight vs concave)
- Wire cutters

Used a lot, but perhaps quality isn’t as important?
- Jin pliers
- Root shears (as long as they’re sharp)
- Root hook

Desirable:
- Tweezers
- Knob cutters (infrequent use, hard to justify splashing out, but I secretly really like them)

Interested as always in the community’s thoughts.

[Ryceman3]

Sorry for your loss, with any luck you won't be repeating that again!
Here's a pic of my main tool roll. I basically take this upstairs when I work on trees. There is a separate one for repotting tools so not really a comprehensive set shown ... but these are what I like to have on hand so I don't have to keep running to fetch things in the middle of a session. The ones marked with an arrow are almost always used at some point doing work on most trees. My tools in here are all Kaneshin, except the straight branch cutter which I actually don't know what it is but it has done a great job over the last 8+ years! Also the baby wire cutters in the front pocket are Masakuni and I own a pair of Wazakura pruning scissors (that are stainless) that I quite like too, but not shown.
What is important for you might differ. Example : Good tweezers are quite handy for me to get in through small branching/foliage when needle plucking small pines etc, but if you have bigger trees they wouldn't be used as often.
Hope that helps a bit.

Tool Roll.jpg

[GavinG]

Thanks for the info - memo to self, put tools in car...

Your list is basically mine,

Essential: Trimming shears, (ordinary scissors just don't cut it...)
Concave branch cutters
Root hook.

I can get away with ordinary pliers to cut wire, but I do as little close wiring as I can.
Ordinary kitchen shears for roots - large roots get secateurs or old branch cutter.

You can get back into gear with just a few quality basics, I think.

And all the best. It's just one of those moments.

Gavin

[Rory]

Thank you for making me laugh very hard.

I concur with Gavin.
All I use is :

An old branch cutter or secateurs for root removal.

For root separation I use another fantastic tool I got from Ray Nesci which is Japanese again and is one thin tool which is very thin like a slightly curved hook one end and a sharp cutter blade on the other end.
I don’t like using root hooks as most will pull out roots and are too rough. I prefer this tool with the one hook only and it’s very small. It takes a lot longer to separate roots this way, but I always go slow and steady now so I don’t damage roots I want to keep.
This tool is also perfect for moss removal and getting into incredibly thin spaces like 1mm thick.

Small pair of bonsai cutters for trimming.

Medium sized concave branch cutter Japanese one from Ray Nesci for standard branch cutting.