Designed to cut ceramic, porcelain and thin natural stone. The powerful tungsten carbide beak is slightly curved on both blades creating a small and precise area which is subjected to maximum force when the handles are squeezed.  Lots of people recommend holding the scissors so that the backs of the blades face in to your body (and the curve on the head of the tool faces outwards); this feels slightly counter-intuitive but means that you can see exactly where the blades will meet, and can therefore judge the best place to hold your tile.  This is less easy to see if you hold the scissors with the head curved towards your body, as the meeting point of the blades is hidden from view because of their bevelled edges.  On large format tiles, you can open and close the handles while rotating the tile to create curved and angled cuts (practice makes perfect). Perhaps because we are all brought up using scissors, these feel wonderfully intuitive, ie you are cutting in the direction in which you are exerting the force - unlike with sidebiter-type nippers, where your force creates a lateral cut. The arms spring back into shape thanks to a really sturdy volute spring. Please remember that this tool is not designed to cut glass and may splinter or crush glass - use wheeled glass nippers instead.

There is a helpful YouTube video from Treasury Road in Australia with demonstrations and reviews of most of the Seabell tools.  The section on these scissor nippers is at about 5 minutes, 31 seconds.  Click here to watch.

Unfortunately Mosaic Workshop can't accept returns of cutting tools which turn out not to suit you, so please think carefully before buying.  If you are finding it very hard to make a decision please contact me as I may be able to lend you tools to try (you will pay a deposit, and for postage in both directions).  In the case of faulty goods we will, of course, accept returns - please see notes in the website footer.