Thank you so very much. Mine are becoming in need of some TLC. I have, what I call “nippers”. 55years ago, I worked in a sewing factory. I purchased these wonderful nippers. This year I can’t get a cut with them. I must admit, I tried to sharpen them, and since then is when I can’t get a cut. Would you have any suggestions or should I just use your excellent instructions? I truly appreciate your advice. Thank you.💕
THANK YOU FOR SHOWING HOW YOU SHARPEN SISSORS. My Dad sharpened about every tool you can imagine, professionally, surgical stuff, too, (back before it was throw-away). He raised me in a machine shop, & I was fluent with most of his equipment by the time I was 10 years old. The principle tools, he used, to sharpen sissors were a flat bastard file and a corregating flat file.. (which they no longer make! ) If you have one, hang on to it. You can't buy them anymore!!! What you were calling DRAW-FILING is FORWARD-FILING. Draw filing is done side-stroke. He taught me you have to have a curve in your blade, so it will shear, like a X. If you can close your sissors and hold them up and peer thru between the blades and there's a bowed holiday between them but they are together at the screw and at the top, they will shear. If its flat, the edges can be razor sharp and they won't cut hot butter. When you store sissors, open them where the tips are at least an inch apart, so the spring tension of the blades aren't wearing down over time. It is slso best if you will store them, hanging from hooks with the tips open. Dull sissors WILL cut paper. Your true test is toilet paper. Cloth sissors and pinking shears have to evenly cut thin cloth as well as thick cloth, burlap & naugahide. Dad taught me never to fool with the inside surface of the blades unless they were rusty. He said, "Son, it's not how MUCH you take off, its how LITTLE you take off!" I had a sharpening business for a while, till I realized the government was eating up the main amount I was making, so I folded my side business and kept doing my regular job. I haven't charged for my services for close to 40 years, but I still sharpen for my family and close friends. Just to keep these old hands nimble. Make a re-curver and guard it with your life, or some A-hole will steal it like they did mine!
Good stuff! If you're having trouble monitoring your progress, color the bevel with a large black or blue Sharpie marker. As you sharpen the bevel you'll be able to clearly see where you need to continue. Try it; it really works.
Thank You!!! This is just what I needed to see. I saw another one that took apart the scissors, passed a file over the back of each blade a couple of times to “remove the burrs” and said “done” Didn’t seem to make sense to me so glad I found this! Thanks again.
Thanks a lot Sir, I am Engr. Aslam from Pakistan. I found of tools & have a small room in my house called as workshop. I do a lot of technical work at home but did not have a concept of sharpening scissors. You have really given an excellent and useful presentation in this regard.
Thank you so much! Wonderfully detailed tutorial, already fixed 3 pairs. And thank you for the attention to the music. No elevator music over here, fantastic.
That story about the barber had me laughing out loud. I think I had that barber! So funny!!! Thank you for your video, but especially the time and care you took to make sure we could see and understand (quite lacking in way too many how to's out there).
Thank you so much!! This is so very helpful. I am a pet groomer and don't always have time to wait on my sharpening guy to sharpen my scissors. Now I can do it myself :)
Right On! ✨👍 So great to hear that this helped you out. Right! It doesn’t take too long to have nice sharp scissors ready for action. Thanks for your comment Jacquie ✨ ✂️ 🐩
Thank you for teaching about two grind angles. I was wondering why my sharpening didn't work. After watching this I ground the 10-degree angle and it worked.
Great video, sir. I learned some things. I build a few fixed blade knives when I have time. Mostly out of tool steel. I wanted to compliment you on how well organized your shop is. Many hundreds of items with labels. Very nice.
Very very good. I am in S.Paulo, Brasil tuned on in the video and this is exactly what i was looking for, since a long long time. Thank you Jon very much.
Great tutorial Bud!! Who don't remember the ol' air snip eh, great story!! I received the stickers and bag today!! The bag is awesome and even more impressive in person!! Thanks for everything Bud!!☺
Right On Everett! 👍 Glad to hear that you got the bag and sticker! Yeah the old air snip and some heavy whistling 😗💨 Damn kid was squirming around! Wouldn’t sit still!!
This is very helpful. Unfortunately, not all of us have a shop and a vice. It would have been really nice to see options for us without a vice, or maybe even using sandpaper if on a lower budget. Thank you for showing a few different scissors. I appreciate you.
Vises that clamp onto a wood table edge are common and inexpensive. $2 at yard sales, I've found. If your table is nice, protect it with cardboard. No need for a shop, as this work does not create much of any mess.
Wonderful, seems like Joe the Barber lived in the moment, and you told the story (whistling along and snipping ) beautifully along with How to sharpen scissors.
My Dad used to keep my Mom’s scissors sharp, especially her dress-making shears as Mom made a lot of our clothing when we were young. Mom would threaten great punishment if we were to use her scissors for cutting paper or cardboard, as the contaminants in the paper quickly dulled the blades. I love to sharpen old tin snips, aviation snips, hedge trimmers, household scissors, etc., and turn a neglected tool back into a top-notch user. One thing I do is put a drop of light household oil on the pivot screw to reduce wear in the joint and extend the life of the instrument.
Thanx for a terrific brief on sharpening Scissors, I do have a couple of comments to add, you can take them for whatever they're worth. First of all, and probably most important, a common problem is that the blades will not close at the tip after all of this diamond honing, and of course they will not cut to the end of the blade. The remedy here is to inspect the exact Bumper spot between the two handles, then go to work on it with file or Dremel, bearing mind, of course, that the distance from the pivot to the blade end, depending on the scissor size you're working with will be several times greater than the distance from the "bumper" to the pivot, so if you are trying to overlap 1/32 inch or so, you'll need to whack probably at least 1/8 or so from the shiny spot on the handle bumper. If you have a little spot of Prussian Blue or stiff axle grease, this will help. Second, in your video, you clearly show the business face of the hone going "AWAY" from the edge. Naughty, naughty, the preferred stroke direction should be "INTO" the blade. Third, I'm not a spokesperson or salesman for any company, however a couple of comments here: First the Gingher 10 inch shears of 19 years or so ago were absolutely the finest shears ever made, mainly because of the unique pivot bushing which actually tightens as the scissors close, relaxing when the scissors open. All this came to an end when Gingher was bought out by Fiskars. The upshot of all this is that the world's best scissors now are the "KAI" brand from Japan (direct purchase and they ain,t cheap!)). The workmanship, hardened steel, and unique adjustable pivot bolt are in a class by themselves, be it serrated or straight edge.
I sharpened my old scissors by cutting some 600 grit wet and dry sandpaper. I used the old scissors because I thought cutting the sandpaper would ruin them, but after cutting a couple of pieces 8 inches long the scissors were real sharp like new again. 👍
Hi Jon- Great tutorial. I too had a old time barber that would "air snip"! He was about 75 years old and was losing his depth perception and he cut my friends eyelid! LOL Later that day he snipped his brothers gold chain and it fell down his shirt... That was it, we all found different barbers after that. When he cut you he had a big old septic stick he would wipe on the wound and tell you to man-up... =D
I was 7 when heard mother saying that her scissors won't cut. I sharpened them by attempting to cut a needle as passing it along the length of the blades. Mother was astounded as the pair were very sharp then. She asked me where I learned that trick. I said from a kids magazine
Helpful tutorial. I tried several times but couldn't succeed. This is due to no angle determination and 2nd, wrong selection of file or stone. Years before I left trying. Now I shall try once again. I'm confident to become successful. Thank a from Bangladesh.
Right On Randy! 👍 Thanks! Right, when I thought about it, I use scissors everyday. I like how those Diamond stones stay nice and flat. Always ready for work.
Jon, you showed how to get a pair of scissors HALF sharp, now if you skip the barber shop theatrics and go on to one or two more final steps you will find that your scissors will be sharp enough to excise an entire ear from a young kid's flinching head in one fell swoop! 😲I use some small ceramic finishing stones but you can simply glue a couple ultra-fine grits of wet-r-dry finishing sandpaper to a piece of thin bar stock and, in a few additional strokes, you will find that there will be such a scary sharp edge to your scissors that, with a bit of practice, you will be able to start a cut in your paper and as the scissors get a "bite", you can slide the cutting tool right across the entire sheet of paper without doing the snip-snip technique. 800 grit on one side and a thousand grit on the other would be sufficient to finish that set of cutting blades off to another level of cutting something more sensible than shredding a sheet of paper. [I have been sharpening edged tools and other pieces of "equipment" for 60 odd years and have not yet figured out the sense in cutting paper into little strips].
Right On! 🙌 Thanks! Those are some good tips. I do have a nice selection of hard Arkansas stones from Pike / Norton. I use them in my machine shop for sharpening end mills and cutting tools. It sure is nice to have sharp scissors! Unless they are cutting your ear at the barber! 💈 Now that barber had some theatrics! 😄
Thanks for the tutorial. For those with no tools maybe use the back of a leather belt on a flat surface as a strop? I had a couple of those old silver with black handled scissors from a yard sale and in a pinch used crumpled small pieces of aluminum foil to rub the light spots of rust and glue off the blades. It was perfect for getting the rust off close to the pivot point too. I also rubbed the aluminum foil tiny crumpled wad diagonally off the blade edge. Seemed to work and the scissors cut well. I then took a black paint pen bought from Agway that my son uses on restoring bicycles and filled in the missing black paint on the handles. While it doesn't go on super smooth it did fill in the silver parts just fine.
Thanks for the video, I never had any luck sharpening my scissors, gonna give it another try in a bit. I will have to say I was a bit surprised you used your diamond block without any fluid, I always thought that was a big no-no.
