13 Best Tool For Cutting Rebar (2023 Updated)

About 5 years ago we purchased a garage full of misc. concrete tools and accessories, not knowing all of the inventory, we returned to our shop with several pickup loads. Upon sorting through everything, we came across one of the original VB16Y rebar bender/cutter, it had never been used.

It was immediately put to work. At the time we were using two hydraulic porta power with a 20′ hydraulic line with a cutter head or bender head. It didn’t take long for the guys to fight over the Metabo bender / cutter, it was definitely a better tool, due to its size, convenience and portability.

Fast forward to the World of Concrete 2020, we were going to purchase two more at the show, but were introduced to the new Multivolt cutter / bender, we immediately purchased two of them. Although they were not available at the time.

We received both in early March, immediately they were put into service and have been used daily since. We are currently waiting on the delivery of the cord attachments, but with the battery life being so great, not sure that the cord will be used much.

We have had a variety of cutters / benders over the 48 years of business as a full service concrete contractor. The Metabo Multivolt is by far the best tool we have purchased for cutting and bending #5 and smaller rebar.

This thing is amazing if your in the concrete world or using it to bend random pieces of rebar. It will pay for it self faster than you think. Also in emergency situations you can bend up what you forgot to order in a pinch.

We bought this about 6 months ago to cut and bend #4 & #5 rebar. For so many years we would cut the rebar with a grinder or the old style heavy rebar cutter and bender. We would even sub out the bends at times.

It just makes life so much easier, even my supervisor who used to say “nah, no need one” now says “we should have gotten one years ago!”.

So I bought this bender/cutter about a year ago because I had a large mat slab to do with lots of bends and slab dowels into the foundations. Bent literally hundreds of bars so far and still performs like a new tool.

Saved me the cost of the tool on the first job because I would usually go to a fab shop to bend bars. This tool is fast accurate and bends to more angles than I’ll ever probably use. Definitely recommend this tool for rebar up to 5/8”.

Waiting for Metalbo to produce one that bends up to #6 bars so I can upgrade. If you’re doing concrete regularly this is a must have.

Used this on a home foundation and foam block concrete wall build. Lots of accurate bends and cuts required. This tool saved the day. Save man hours and and atleast a day of mind numbing bending/ cutting manually.

If you are doing foundation form work of foam block walls it will pay for itself on the first job.

My husband bought me this tool a few months ago and it has saved so much time. We do alot of volunteer work along with a general construction business. So we work along side ones that have zero experience with tools and this is one of the tools that we can confidently teach them to use and we know they’ll be safe.

Prior to this purchase we were using a cold cut rebar cutter and a manual bender. It was so physically taxing. We would have to hire extra people to do multiple jobs and it was getting expensive. Now we only have to hire one person or I can just run it myself for the whole job and the money we were paying multiple people stays with us and our business.

I look at this particular Leatherman as the “Wave-Light” — which is actually perfect for me. I do own a Wave and others as well. You lose two of the exterior blades (the saw and serrated knife), but gain a lighter and more pocketable device which I prefer.

It comes with the pocket clip attached, unlike the Wave, and actually carries surprisingly well in the pocket. The interior tools are identical aside from the inclusion of an Awl instead of the Micro-Driver (I personally find the Awl more useful and really appreciate this).

You should note that the interior tools are not fully “locking” like they are on the Wave, but the slip-joint “snap” is quite strong and I don’t mind this, because the main knife still has a full liner-lock.

I also presume this helps with achieving the slimmer and lighter profile of the Curl which is important to me. All this said, the first one I purchased from REI had a factory bizarre defect. The large fixed flat driver / pry tool was literally un-machined at all into the tool, as if it just never got shaped or ground at the factory and they just stuck a random rectangular bar of steel into it with a blunt cut off tip.

I sent photos to Leatherman, and to their credit they responded very quickly and agreed it was a factory defect, and to REI’s credit, they replaced it with a new one the next day no questions asked. The new one seems flawless in construction, so I’m happy.

All in all, I own a lot of Leatherman tools and this is now my go-to EDC version because I feel like I get the same familiar quality and tools as the Wave but in a more pocketable setup.

On the plus side, the Bond’s tools are of great quality. It’s compact, light and probably UK legal, making a great pocket carry if you have the pocket clip. The simple sheath and large lanyard loop are great for watersports.

Unfortunately the body of the Bond is low quality and poorly engineered, compared to other Leatherman models. All the bolts on mine have been overtightened so much that it was virtually unusable out of the box.

Oiling and working the joints helps a bit, but it’s very hard to open and close the pliers and most of the tools. There is play in the plier handles when they’re closed. Feels like it’s going to bend or break when using it as a screwdriver with the plier handles closed.

How the pliers manage to be wobbly and overly stiff at the same time is beyond me. When using the pliers, the exposed edge of the file forms part of the handle, but it’s sharp and rough against your hand.

The file has a nail slot to pull it out with, but this is completely unnecessary and just limits the usability of the file. I realise that this is a “cheap” Leatherman, but I’d rather pay a bit more for a UK legal carry multitool with the same amazing quality as my Charge Plus.

My PST is 30 years old and has none of the above problems.

I’m an avid fan of Leatherman tools, and have been for many years. While the Wave (and it’s higher end brother the Charge) is quite possibly the best multitool out there, it has a few major drawbacks for me, the biggest of which is it is a little too thick and heavy for everyday pocket carry.

I must not have been the only one who thought this, as Leatherman have issued the Curl, a stripped down version of the Wave Gen 2. Gone are saw and serrated blade, reducing the overall thickness by one tool width and the weight accordingly.

Gone are the replaceable wire cutters, back to fixed. This isn’t really an issue, as Leatherman has a solid warranty in the event the fixed cutters wear out. The eyeglass screwdriver bit holder is also gone, replaced by the awl from the Rebar/ST300.

This is certainly an improvement IMHO. The Curl comes standard with a Free series pocket clip, which is more low profile than the Wave. The only real issue I have with the Curl is it’s price point; it’s not significantly cheaper than the Wave, but it’s not really an either/or scenario.

I dont think any other brand has done what Klein has done with there side cutters. Most durable, sharp, and easy to use side cutters on this planet. I have never used Kinipex side cutters, but I think Klein would still reign over Kinipex.

Edit Feb 2020: The pliers I reviewed and used got stolen, so I replaced them with Knipex side cutters. The Klein pliers I bought in this review were very good pliers, but comparing my Knipex pliers to anyones Klein pliers is just sad.

I loved my Klein pliers when I had them. Comparing those at that time, they seemed to have been made better than Klein pliers you buy today. My brother bought two separate pairs of Klein pliers and the blades on both of them did not properly line up, taking greater effort and strain to cut material.

If I were to purchase the exact same pair of Klein pliers today, they would not compare to the pliers I had in 2017. The 2017 pliers were 5 star, so I will leave it at that. I recommend you, the reader of this review, buy Knipex.

The title is what I was told as a young apprentice by a journeyman electrician. I later took a different career path but I still value the quality of Klein hand tools, which are the tools of American electricians, linemen and technicians of every stripe.

Well designed, durable tools are worth the extra pennies you pay. These Klein diagonals are the best.

i have a few cutters of this type. The Linesman pliers I have include Klien, Proto and Snap-on. THese Kliens seem to have the hardest edges of any of these. They do not show any signs of indentations or deformation where the Snap-on and Proto 8″ linesman do.

The Klein Linesman are quite hefty and are my second choice. The Snap-on do not open and close easily with one hand. The Vintage Proto work very well and are a good size but have developed dents in the cutting edges over the years.

Although they have been used far more than the others. I have put these Kliens to the test on nails and thick wire bindings. And they take the abuse. The smaller size of the jaws allow you to get the tips into tight spots where a Linesman plier will not fit.

A quality tool.

I just purchased the DEWALT DW872 14-inch Multi-Cutter Saw, took it out of the box and tried it out. It did not cut square in the horizontal or vertical plane. The horizontal direction is easy to set by adjusting the fence, however the vertical plane needed the saw to be shimmed with.

005 shim stock to get it cutting anywhere near square. The vise is so poorly designed it needed a total rebuild to make it at least safe. The designer of this very expensive saw decided to tilt the locking jaw 3/16 out of square, I suppose, to put more pressure on the top of the material.

With that brilliant plan the saw will not hold many different sizes of stock securely. The “designer” also left so much play in the vise jaw to table connection that the jaw rides up a 1/4 inch when tightened.

To overcome these dangerous features I first made a new, thicker, spacer that has much less play in it so the vise jaw does not ride up when tightened. The next fix was the tilted movable vise jaw. After machining a tapered piece of 3/8 inch steel to match the taper of the jaw, securing it to the existing jaw, the vise now holds a variety of material sizes securely.

The next job is to try to contain or direct the shower of sharp shrapnel that fires out the back side of this tool. In closing, if you want 90 degree cuts and own a nice size machine shop and have 50 years experience making and fixing things, this saw can be made to work.

I would not recommend it for a professional.

I purchased this Milwaulkee tool in a kit form (with dust shroud, 4Ah battery and charger) solely based on a YouTube video review that was using it to cut plaster on a plaster and lath wall. I’m not invested in the Milwaulkee platform (I have Ridgid tools and batteries), but I needed to cleanly remove plaster and “Rocklath”( a 3/8” transitional material used after wood lath, but before drywall) during a client bathroom remodel.

The bathroom had plaster crown molding and I wanted to preserve it, which necessitated cutting cleanly 6″ below and tying in modern drywall. I’ve experienced enough plaster dust clouds to appreciate any tool that mitigates it.

Ridgid and Ryobi both have similar tools in 18 volt, but TTI has decided not to make a dust shroud for them, which is unfortunate since both are 18V versus the 12V Milwaukee, plus I’m already invested in Ridgid.

Firstly, this saw is not powerful enough to be used in this application, IMHO. I was careful to keep the blade in a straight line to avoid binding the rear of the blade, but even the slightest deviation would cause the thermal overload to trip.

Secondly, the 3″ blade has only a 3/8″ cutting depth. I was dealing with a 1/2″ plaster on 3/8″ drywall, so the wheel wasn’t capable of doing a complete cut. I’ve seen plenty of lath and plaster walls that had a plaster layer that thick as well.

This isn’t a fault of this tool, but a limitation of these 3″ cutters in general. Thirdly, I was only able to get 3/4 ways around the 5’x8′ room before the 4Ah needed to be charged. I did purchase a two pack of batteries in anticipation of this happening, but I’ll be returning them in light of the overall sub par performance of this tool.

Fourthly, as a southpaw, getting my hand around the grip to pull the trigger with the dust shroud in place was a challenge. I don’t have sausage fingers, but anyone who does and is left handed is going to find it a challenge.

At least the Reverse setting is south paw friendly. A good try, TTI tool engineers, but back to the drawing board.

Doing rough in plumbing work where I’m working around steel studs and tracking this tool has become absolutely invaluable to me. No longer do I need to fight with getting tin snips in there, or scoring with a razor and bending until it breaks.

Just pull this little powerhouse out and zip through whatever is in the way. The adjustable guard and reversible rotation this tool offers are just icing on the cake. As far as battery life goes I have yet to run it dead during a day’s work while using the XC4.

0 batteries. Given that I’m only cutting through thin sheet metal I have decided to run only the diamond edged metal max blades. Sure they cut a bit slower, but it’s negligible in this instance, and now I have zero concern of a wheel self destructing on me.

Not to mention it’s very nice to have a cutting wheel that doesn’t shrink. I find Milwaukee’s cut off wheels definitely last the longest, but you can still watch them shrink, quickly, right before your eyes as you make the cuts.

That’s just not economical in my use case. So before this gets too long winded all I can say is this tool should be in the tool bag of every plumber, electrician, tin knocker, and framer out there. Anyone who says it’s no good is probably trying to use it somewhere that a proper full size angle grinder should be used instead.

I was so excited to get this tool, had my eye on it for awhile but something else always came up that needed immediate attention. Finally a task came up that made me immediately think that this tool would be needed.

Waited till all supplies were acquired and I was ready to begin before purchasing because I own many Milwaukee tools and have never had a problem with any of them. Disappointment from the very start tho with this one.

Opened the box that was still factory sealed and was missing parts. Specifically the blades I planned on using. Project on hold till new blades arrived. Again disappointment, the tool bogs down immediately and shuts off, try my bigger fully charged 6amp battery, no change, same thing.

I read directions and use tools correctly. I wasn’t trying to force the tool along and the material fits in the guidelines of what this tool should be able to (easily) cut. I rate every tool I get after sufficient time to properly rate said tool.

Only needed 5 minutes before sufficient time was reached on this one. Back to the drawing board Milwaukee as this thing can barely cut twigs. Loved the design, the idea, and hoped for typical Milwaukee, but this one should have been scraped.

Disappointed and resorted to a different manufacturer to finish project. Still a fan but found out it’s true, no one is perfect.

As with most klein tools, these works great and I expect it to last me decades. I have another, similar, pair of these that my dad handed down to me (along with a lot of other klein tools) and they are easily 30+ yrs old that he used during his electrician and construction days and they are still working strong.

Seeing how well his klein tools perform, especially after so long, I only buy Klein myself now. You get what you pay for, these cost a premium but they will probably last a life time, or two. I go by my dad’s philosophy when it comes to tools, pay a premium now and only need to worry about buying it once.

I know there a basic tool, but overall an excellent product. I’ve only had two pairs of these and I only bought the second cause the first pair was stolen. The rubber handle makes it easy to control.

Simple design makes it easy to to use and durable. Overall 5 out of 5.

Very nice bits, when you hit rebar, they keep going. We have only used on a couple jobs but the bits have not been damaged at all. One of the projects we drilled about 40 holes and hit some rebar with no noticeable wear on the bit.

Diablo sent me this bit to test out on some reinforced concrete during one of the flips I did around mid-July, and I put this bit to the test drilling 10-12 holes overall on one project and it is still holding up just fine.

Two of those holes I did hit rebar or mesh and felt a little change in the manner that it was drilling but overall it didn’t stop the bit in its tracks like I’ve experienced before, with broken/sheared off bits.

I’m curious time see how long this bits life cycle is, sense most bits can’t stand the giant changes in heat over a substantial period of time, but so far I’m very impressed with this bit. -Hank’s Woodshed.

Well. I had to drill about 30 holes before I finally hit a piece of #6 rebar. It cut through it so clean and so easy I didn’t even realize I hit it. I’m sold for sure. These bits look like they were very well and will last a long time even with hitting rebar I will be buying more and recommending them to my fellow colleagues.

I use this tool for cutting concrete on a driveway. I was surprised at the speed with which it would cut after reading some of the other comments from owners. Take notice that direction of blade rotation requires that this tool be pulled not pushed for optimal cutting.

I am sure there are gasoline-powered cutters that will cut faster but it is completely satisfactory in speed for me. It is somewhat heavy but that is to be expected with any large tool.

I bought this “saw” expecting it to be somewhat underpowered but I was pleasantly surprised at how much torque it has. I used it for cutting through concrete and natural stone and it breezed through it without any issue at all.

If you don’t want to deal with its gas powered brother and have access to electricity this one is for you.

It works great i like this saw, it help me with my projet alot i recomend this saw for indoor, concrete cutting.

It’s been my EDC for a few months, ever since someone broke my Gerber Suspension that I carried for five years (don’t share your tools, kids). The most used tools are the two flatheads. The large one is far too thick to fit into any flathead I’ve seen, and isn’t even tapered.

The skinny flathead on the nail file is far too thin and brittle. I was turning a screw on an outlet cover and the tip of the screwdriver broke off. The knife is nice and large, as are the scissors. My favorite tool on it has to be the package opener.

At first I tried using it to cut packaging tape on boxes, but the knife is a far better tool for that job. It’s not good for letter opening either, just use the knife. The package opener is the perfect tool to open those annoying as ever plastic blister packaging that everything you love is sold to you in.

Have always used cheap low quality multi tools around the house/in the truck until receiving a wave+ for Christmas. Was extremely impressed with the product and bought the surge as well. The surge is bigger, heavier and feels like it will handle anything I throw at it.

The wave+ lives in my truck and is in my pocket when out hiking, etc; the surge stays home to tackle tasks around the house. The large scissors on the outside of the surge are great, and the inclusion of an awl makes the surge my preferred tool albeit a bit too heavy/bulky for your pocket.

Needless to say I threw away all of the old junk tools I’d been using and recommend both the wave+ and surge. The price is a tough one to swallow, but if you regularly use a multi-tool and aren’t strapped for cash you won’t be disappointed with one of these.

The saw itself cuts as expected, but don’t use it for any kind of serious work. The thin metal base will warp and twist on you when exposed to prolonged spark and heat from cutting heavy material. Seek out a design with a cast iron base, you’ll thank yourself.

I had originally bought one with a thin metal base and then found a display model with a cast iron base. Though Home Depot was willing to give me a discount on the display model, I am now the proud owner of 2 chop saws.

I guess it’s good to have one for parts when the other breaks down.

This saw is powerful enough to cut metal without bogging down too much. I find the cutting fence angle adjustment to be a nuisance because of the small spring loaded handle and indents. Each angle adjustment requires you to lift the handle to disengage the detents, turn it a small amount, release the handle whereupon the spring forces it to re-seat in a detent, and then repeat the process.

This may be a safety feature but a pentagon knob or a 4 arm bar knob would be much more useful. Changing the fence location is also time consuming as there are only two locations (threaded holes) for the fence retaining bolt to go into.

The retaining bolt is very close to the back of the fence forcing you to make multiple turns with the dinky flat wrench to extract the bolt and re-install it. The saw itself is acceptable but the difficulty in making layout changes will cause me to take a good look at other saws when it comes time to buy another.

I bought this a month ago and I love it. I have some 1.5” square tubing to cut for Sign frames & it cuts with ease.

I bought this item a couple weeks ago because my previous pair were stolen. I love this tool so much I bought a pair as soon as I got in my car after work the day they were stolen. I opted for the fish tape puller version and let me tell you I do not regret it.

I wasn’t sure how much I would use the fish tape pulling feature but it has been a life saver in a couple situations. They always have a great cutting edge and last a very long time. I will never own a pair of lineman’s that aren’t made by Klein.

I’ve had this product for several years. It took me a year to even understand the capability of these pliers. The thread holder rather it was designed this was or not is excellent for rethreading stripped ends on the porcelain tips for 1/0 and 4/0 insulated high voltage load break elbows.

This is a VERY common problem. They strip all the time. This tool is a life saver as it cost the company a lot of money to replace a tip. I’d suggest advertising this feature. Thanks guys. Long time devoted Klein shopper and lineman.

I don’t understand how people praise this kind of pliers! I’m not american that could be the reason am not used to these type of heavy and large pliers, I mean these aren’t even 9″ they are 9. 5″ but oh man these are so hefty and not comfortable to use, also very stiff.

I also have KTC Japanese brand 8″ pliers and they are lighter, have better grips and insulation rubbers, very smooth and comfortable to use. These Kleins, I can’t hold for a long time specially when working above the shoulder level.

The build quality seems very fine no doubt, but what is use of pliers when they can’t hold pieces smaller than 1mm fact that there is a gap in between the grabbing part? I think I expected too much because of the positive reviews, and I still believe these could be better if: 1.

They weren’t so heavy. 2. a little bit shorter, 8″ may be. 3. handle rubber was fuller, softer and thicker with insulation. 4. there wasn’t any gap between grabbing part. 5. smooth to open and close (like Knipex) by the way, I love “made in USA” tools, with historical background.

There is some satisfaction in owning them.