basic care for shears

[hutch--]

Jeffrey,

Do a Google search with this topic line.

scissor sharpening north carolina

It turns up a reasonable list of services that are around your area. I don't know NC but you probably do and what I would do is actually ring them up in business hours and ask them if they know how to sharpen rare Wiss shears properly without wrecking them.

Something important, avoid people who sharpen hairdressers scissors, it is the wrong technology for fabric shears. Unless they know exactly how to sharpen tailors shears, do not trust them.

[Jeffrey2117]

Hello Hutch,

    That is the problem I am facing, the man who used to sharpen mine retired a few years ago after 50 years.  Most others in this area can sharpen hairdresser's, barber blades or mower blades and farm equipment. 

I showed them my shears and they said they never seen any like that before, not a good sign.  I would rather take them somewhere reputable with experience sharpening  them. 

I have arthritis in the hands and working with my shears has gotten difficult t cut with compared to when they are nice and sharpened.

Thank you all for any recommendations.

Jeffrey 2117

[hutch--]

Jeffrey,

Give this guy a ring and ask if he knows how to sharpen a real pair of tailor's shears. His ad say he sharpens scissors for cutting fabric and he did training with Wolf Industries which make the right type of sharpening equipment for fabric shears and scissors.

http://www.ncagr.gov/ncproducts/ShowSite.asp?ID=100857

[Jeffrey2117]

Hello Hutch,

    I spoke with the gentleman from the sharpening service you located, he was familiar with my type of shears.  I am going to mail out a pair shears for him to look at and see how they turn out. 

He has been out of the military since 1972, so not a newcomer in the business.

Regards

Jeffrey2117

[hutch--]

Thats great, let us know if you get a good result as others would like to find a reliable sharpener on the east coast US.

[Jeffrey2117]

Hello Hutch,

    I certainly will notify you of the results, I am hoping for the best in this case!

Thank you for locating this information and posting.

Kind regards

Jeffrey2117

[lepus]

[...]
I have arthritis in the hands and working with my shears has gotten difficult t cut with compared to when they are nice and sharpened.
[...]

It's probably sacrilegious to mention this here, but have you considered using a rotary knife cutter instead of shears? On the risk of being banned from the forum, I admit I've been using one for many years now with success. It cuts very fast and very accurately and easily manages several layers of winter coat fabric in one go. The blade is small enough for concave curves of the types occurring in garment parts for adults. The cloth is lifted considerably less than with shears during cutting, as the foot of the cutter is only 6 mm high, which greatly contributes to producing two exactly equal parts.

You'll only have to support the weight of the cutter with your hand and guide it, no other muscular effort is required. Mine weighs 860 g, a considerable weight compared to my biggest shears, which weigh in at 520 g, but of course the cutter rests on the cutting table during cutting, the same way as shears do. My cutter is from a period when small large capacity batteries weren't available, so it is mains powered. I'm pretty certain there are modern lighter, cordless models available.

[hutch--]

 

> On the risk of being banned from the forum

No risk here, we already have one video on using a rotary cutter and may find a better one.

[Jeffrey2117]

Hello Lepus,

    No, I have not used the rotary shears before, is yours an industry and corded powered one?  My wrists and shoulders have arthritis also, so not want to put a strain on those areas either. 

I will be celebrating 40 years since I began working in the same shop next month, minus my time in military.  I did not know I would celebrate with Ibuprofen!

Kind regards

[Henry Hall]

That reminds me of my grandmother. She had arthritis too and when the doctor asked if she drank alcohol, she said: 'The only cocktail I've had in the last three years is a cocktail of anti-inflammatory drugs'.

[David K]

For those asking about sharpening, like, Tailleuse, I can also attest to Westphal's great work. They quoted me 10 days on 3 pairs of shears, and I had them back in less than a week and they are perfect.

[Schneiderfrei]

Hutch how different is sharpening scissor blades to knives?

Do you have to disassemble the scissors to do it propperly.

What about the blade shape?

Is there anything that you do to keep the blades contacting each other the whole way?

[hutch--]

Knives and scissors are different animals, knives "cut" where scissors "shear" and the angles are a lot different. A high quality carbon steel knife can be sharpened to about 10 degrees included angle where with scissors you set the angle from 90 degrees minus the top cutting edge angle you require so you end up with 90 degrees minus 30 to 45 degrees depending on the steel and hardness.

With small cheap scissors you can usually fully open them and hold them across the hinge but on proper shears you need to pull them apart to accurately control the sharpening angle.

> Is there anything that you do to keep the blades contacting each other the whole way?

If you are just sharpening them, remove the bare minimum and follow the original shape and the blades should work according to the original design. If they have to be re-engineered you need to be able to control the blade curvature to ensure there is sufficient pressure along the length of the cutting edges and this can be complicated work if you need to hollow grind the blade faces again.

[Schneiderfrei]

Thanks for that Hutch,

I would be very anxious about actually doing the sharpening on my favourite scissors, but I am by nature very interested in the process. 

The blade contact issue is the one that baffles me the most

[hutch--]

You have to get an idea of the geometry of scissor/shear blades. If you look from the front of proper shears you will see that the blades are slightly curves on the faces which compensates for the required blade profile from the top edge that need to have some curve on both blades so they can cut a radius. Then there is the factor of how rigid the blades are, on light scissors the blades are pre-loaded against each other to maintain enough pressure so that whatever is being cut does not drag down between the blades.

On heavy shears the blades are so rigid that they don't need the pre-load and can be adjusted so they only slightly touch at the very tips. This tends to make good shears almost frictionless and improves the cutting "feel" when cutting out garments.

Both the top and face curves need to be very even and progressive so that you don't get dead spots along the cutting edge and this is among the reasons why the old trick of setting blades with a hammer on an anvil was such a bad idea in that it spoiled the blade curvature and made them very stiff and rough to operate.