Important disclaimer: Sometimes reviews on Oath of Moment will be for products that I have purchased, sometimes, reviews are for products that have been sent to me for that purpose. Whether I received them for free or paid for them won’t impact my reviews of these products but transparency is important. For this review, Stedi were kind enough to send me this tool for free to review on Oath of Moment. Thank you Stedi Tools.

Until fairly recently, I considered clippers a pretty boring but necessary tool of the hobby and hadn’t really given much thought to which I used, just whichever were in the shop or most likely had come in a hobby starter set such as those Game Workshop sells. Earlier in the year I decided to treat myself to something a little more expensive and spent what I would call proper money on a pair – we’ll come back to those later as a bit of a comparison will hopefully help in showing the value for money (or otherwise) of these particular pliers / clippers / nippers. Also, just for clarity, when I say ‘proper money’, I mean, I could have bought a small squad of minis instead!

So very initial impressions just from the packaging and the first one that stands out is the replacement spring! Never had a set of these where a replacement was provided! They also come with a little leather hood to protect the blade when not in use and an Allen key to adjust the bolt that acts as a stopper to reduce any damage to the blade through excessive pressure being applied.

These nippers have a single blade, meaning that one side is blunt and acts as a brace for what you’re cutting and the other side is sharp and makes the cut. The logic behind a single blade is that it reduces the stress on the part that is being cut, giving you a cleaner cut and reducing any damage that might be done. They are by their nature a little more delicate though so you need to be careful on how you use them and not try cutting through anything too thick (the instructions for this product recommend nothing thicker than 3mm).

My experience is that they cut very well, particularly where you have nice flat edges that you’re cutting. That’s not always true of Games Workshop minis so where the sprue connections are on rounded plates etc you get the same challenges as ever with excess material that you’ll then need to cut and file down. These are illustrated best in the pictures of the Noise Marine below:

Stedi MS-104 Model Nipper vs DSPIAE ST-A Ultra Thin Single Blade Nipper 3.0

So, I mentioned the more expensive clippers I had bought previously, this was the DSPIAE ST-A 3.0. I was enamoured with the talk of the GodHand Clippers but they were a bit beyond my budget so I was looking for the next best thing at the price point below and the DSPIAE option stood out. They’re a canny little set of clippers and I have no complaints about them. Or at least I didn’t until I got my hands on the Stedi ones. The DSPIAE ones feel a smidge more high-end and they come in a nice case to keep them safe, but, once you factor in that currently (as per Amazon UK – links at the bottom of this article) the Stedi offering is less than half the price of the DSPIAE ones, I know I’d have preferred to have saved the money here. When it comes down to it, I can’t notice any difference when it comes to clipping my Noise Marines and Infractors – they both cut nice and clean on flat contact points and leave the plastic free of any of the visible stress marks of my Citadel Clippers for example.

Conclusion

In short, I think these are great clippers, if you’re intrigued by the likes of the GodHand and DSPIAE clippers but want to save some money to buy some actual minis, then I think these are well worth a look – Stedi have a range of nippers and other tools too.

Links

The below are affiliate links through Amazon.co.uk. If you purchase from Amazon.co.uk after following these links, Oath of Moment makes a small commission on your purchase that will go towards paying the fees for the site etc.

Stedi Model Ultra-Thin Single-Edge Nipper MS-104 – Recommended

DSPIAE ST-A Ultra-Thin Single Blade Nipper