1. Gloves
> 2. Handles, both held.
> 3. Metal screw, between blades of garden lopper
> 4. 30mA PowerBreaker Plugin RCD at the end of a 10m extension
> 5. 10 Amp fuse
>
> I was merely cutting twigs on a confused assortment of leaves and orange
> cables, and with gusto spotted on the lawn a nice meaty branch. >
> These Lidl loppers are great, they slice like butter.
>
> <bang>
>
> The shower of sparks on slicing a 2-conductor hedge trimmer cable laying
> alongside the branch, was impressive. Cut a nice notch in my lopper > blade, too.
>
>
> OK, I need more cordless tools, that was close :-(
>
> Both items 4 & 5 both did their job, but maybe I should buy a new
> PowerBreaker. I do test it before use, but it's probably 40 years old? >
Did you feel an electric shock? If its 2-core and the loppers are plastic cased, which they probably will be if 2-core flex, what is the path to earth to trip the RCD part of the plug-in RCD. Is the RCD fused or does it have a current trip as well as the RCD function. Sounds like it was the over current on the RCD that tripped. The plug-in type seem to have a 13Amp trip so possibly that which tripped.
Dave