Breakage of a side cutter

The side cutter, actually intended for cable ties, was used to cut steel wire and broke in the process (fracture surface area 1), the fracture exit is in the cutting edge at the bottom right. The next time it was used on a cable tie, the remaining cross-section (area 2). Very fine ductile forced fracture (honeycomb fracture) is found in both fracture zones.

The basic structure is tempered to 775 HV0.2.

Area 2 was presumably heated to deform the cutting edge and thus highly tempered (380 HV0.2).