Squadron Hobbies
Sprue Cutters



Reviewed October 2024
by Martin J Quinn 
Squadron Sprue Cutters

Squadron Hobbies has release a trio of sprue cutters - Basic/Rough Cut, Precision Cut and High Precision Cut.  These are available separately, or as a set. 

SQUADRON SPRUE CUTTER - BASIC/ROUGH CUT
The basic/rough cut sprue cutter comes packaged in a clear plastic sleeve on top of stiff cardboard backing, clearly branded as being from "Squadron Tools"

I tested the basic/rough cut sprue cutter by removing the hull of the 1/350 Zvezda HMS Dreadnought from the sprue, as the tabs from the sprue to the hull halves are fairly thick.  The cutter worked perfectly, and remove the hull halves easily.  There was a small nub left on the hull half, but that was more because I was trying to both snip and photograph at the same time. 

 
SQUADRON SPRUE CUTTER - PRECISION CUT
The precision cut sprue cutter comes packaged in a clear plastic sleeve on top of stiff cardboard backing, also clearly branded as being from "Squadron Tools"

I tested the basic/rough cut sprue cutter by removing some cockpit parts of the 1/48 Tamiya Shinden Type 11 from the sprue.  With this model, the tabs between the sprue and the parts are not as thick as with those in the Dreadnought kit. Again, the cutter worked perfectly, and removed the parts from the sprue easily.  As before, any nubs left over were more of product of my snipping and shooting photos at the same time. 

 
SQUADRON SPRUE CUTTER - HIGH PRECISION CUT
As with the other two cutters, the high precision cut sprue cutter comes packaged in a clear plastic sleeve on top of stiff cardboard backing, clearly branded as being from "Squadron Tools".

For the high precision sprue cutter, I test it by removing parts from the 3D printed 1/35 Vargas Models M2A1 tank from their print rafts.  While 3D printing has revolutionized the hobby, removing parts from the print rafts is a tedious and soul sucking endeavor. While it helped the the attachment points between the supports and the parts were somewhat easily detached, the cutters worked very well. 

 
CONCLUSIONS
There are a bewildering amount of sprue cutters available to the scale modeling community, from Xuron, Tamiya, Micro Mark and GodHand.  These new cutters from Squadron compare very favorably to the Xuron, Tamiya and Micro Mark sprue cutters I currently have on my workbench.  Each worked well for the task at hand, and left only a small nub on the part to clean up.  Again, part of that could have been from me trying to both snip and snap (photos) at the same time.  These sprue cutters are available either as a set, or individually directly from Squadron Hobbies, who I'd like to thank for the review samples.  The retail prices range from $12.99 USD for the basic/rough cut sprue cutters, to $49.99 for the high precision cut sprue cutters.  The complete set retails for $79.99.   I really like these, and plan to making them the go to cutters on my workbench.  Highly recommended!