Background
A neighbour of my Mum's got a bit over ambitious with his tree loppers/shears. Th maximum diameter of these type of commonly available shears is about 40mm. He freely admitted that he had tried to cut a much larger branch by 'nibbling' at it with the anvil type loppers shown in the photographs. Unfortunately during this process he over stressed the shears and shattered the anvil of the jaws. Fortunately these can be replaced and spare parts are available for them depending on the fitting. Read below for more details on how a perfectly usable pair of loppers/shears were saved from the scrap yard and put back into service.
A quick examination of the shears and comparing them to others brands confirmed that the jaw parts were very identical.
I was able to take the anvil side of a pair of loppers i had and fit them to the broken pair using the securing bolt.
I searched the internet and found a number of possible replacements but settled on one that was known to fit my model and therefore the broken pair of my Mum's neighbour.
The replacement anvil was ordered on-line and took a few days to arrive.
After cleaning up the mounting surface of the loppers jaws the new anvil was installed, adjusted to the best fit in the jaws and secured in place.
The entire job took less than 90 minutes, from looking up spare parts, identifying possible replacements, ordering and fitting the parts.
While the loppers were being repaired, the joints were oiled and tightened where required to eliminate any lateral movement that could damage them if they were over stressed again.
A replacement pair of loppers could cost between GBP10-GBP25 depending on the brand. The replacement anvil, although not identical to the original one fitted, cost GBP2.80 including postage and packing! Well worth the effort to save perfectly good tools from being scrapped and all the energy that would be wasted doing so.