Question Line Cutter or Trauma Shears?

[Living4Experiences]

I have an Aqua Lung dive knife that goes into the integrated sheath on my Aqua Lung BCD. I loosely call it a knife because it doesn't really cut, and it takes some effort to use, so I want something better. What tool is better for making a quick cut underwater? A line cutter or trauma shears? Or something else? If trauma shears, I assume it needs to be marine grade that doesn't rust and is easy to use. What do you use? I don't want to spend much on this, $30 or less.

TIA!

 

[Living4Experiences]

I have shears and a line cutter. I take the line cutter on every dive. My line cutter is a DGX titanium M cut safety tool. I attach the line cutter to my BCD where it is accessible, very light weight and takes almost no space. The one moving part gets oiled after every dive.

I got the shears as part of doing an underwater fishing pier cleanup (Deerfield Beach) and the shears cut big messes of fishing line faster than the line cutter. For the pier cleanup I used paracord to tether the shears to a wrist strap as I needed two hands to put a glob of fishing line and in the mesh collection bag. Forget using shears if you are wearing gloves or want your hands free for other things. I haven't taken the shears on another dive as they aren't as convenient to carry or use. Only for special dives like underwater pier cleanups where I expect to deal with wads of fishing line will I bother to take shears.

Good point about the gloves and shears. I wear gloves on every dive, so a line cutter sounds like the best choice.

 

[kinoons]

These are XShears without a protective coating (cause it was more expensive) with 6 years of diving from a couple of times a month to a couple of times a week. Only maintenance they get is a soak in a bucket of fresh water after I get home. Everything except the crust next to the handles is light surface rust on thick stainless bar, and would shine away with a little steel wool. They go for around $42 now. I don’t think I’ve ever used my DIR knife underwater. But these get all kinds of use.

I too have gone to the x-shears for ER work. Stay sharp and much more corrosion resistant than the raptors. It’s good to see how they may hold up under water. I have the black coated pair, several years old, and still going strong.

 

[landphil]

I too have gone to the x-shears for ER work. Stay sharp and much more corrosion resistant than the raptors. It’s good to see how they may hold up under water. I have the black coated pair, several years old, and still going strong.

And they're made so you can use them without removing your fireproof or winter gloves; so, the finger holes are huge compared to generic shears. Works great with my 5mm or dry gloves. I'm also going to order a set of EMS Shears to test out. They kind of look like stainless steel garden shears masquerading as trauma shears. Makes me want to dive in to cut off a big ball of kelp that's wrapped around an anchor line. Those Blauer shears likely wouldn't make it through airport security like a regular set of shears, though.