In over my head

smitty0331

smitty0331

Joined
Dec 5, 2006
Messages
892
I recently agreed to sharpen a pair of scissors for a professional hairdresser. Once I got them home, I realized that I may be in trouble. These are definitely not grannies scissors, they are finely ground, and precisely balanced. I looked them up online to see how much they cost in case I ruined them, and my jaw hit the floor. If anyone has any suggestions as to a good method to sharpen goog quality scissors, feel free to chime in.
 
Edge Pro has the scissor sharpening attachment that I LOVE for doing fine edges on scissors and shears. Best rig I've ever found for doing this type of work!
 
You cannot sharpen barber scissors by freehand; you need a support for the sharpening angle.
Barber scissors have normally sharpening angles something between 40 – 65 degrees – but you can find both lower and higher angles then that sometimes.

If the edges is damaged you need to grind the edge to straighten it up and then you also need to polish the edge in the exact same angle.

I use this when I sharpen barbers scissors:

im000950ar5.jpg

Shot at 2008-03-21

In this way I can adjust the sharpening angle to all scissors and I can make very fine and very small adjustments of the sharpening angle.

The most expensive barber scissor I have sharpen costs about 2.600 USD so scissors is nothing you try to sharpen - you must be very sure that you really can sharpen them.

I use mostly Fallkniven DC3 when sharpen barber scissors and it works very good also on scissors. In the picture above I use Norton finest diamond sharpener to straighten up an edge that was damaged.

Thomas
 
I guess I better re-think my game-plan. Thanks for the warning. What, exactly is the jig you have pictured above? Where can I find one?
 
WHO can't sharpen them freehand? Because you can't doesn't mean no one else can. I have never had any trouble freehand sharpening them.
 
I sharpened a pair for my sister once. Once, being the key word. I told her to just pay to have it done professionally. I think she was paying about $15 a piece, which wasn't a great savings, the pair costing $30 new.
 
This pair runs about 125.00 online. That's why I want to do this right. If all else fails, I might have to get these professionally sharpened. I'm not ready to throw in the towel yet though. I don't want to admit defeat, I'll try them freehand if I have to, but I would really prefer an alternative.
 
Think about it very hard before you go freehand on them!

You absolutely need a support.

What you can do is to use a vice. In the vice you put up two aluminium plates so that the top ends of them is about 5 cm above the vice. Put the scissor between them and close the vice careful and the two plates now grips the scissor gently – but steady - if you do it correct.

Now the scissor has a fixed position – and it must be absolutely fixed. It is not allowed to move at all.

Look at the sharpening angle at the scissor. You now need something standing behind the scissor about 10-20 cm from it. Follow the angle from the scissor and find out about where you must have the support. Build something up to that height. The top of it must be possible to adjust some degrees. That can be something you can move a little in distance from the edge.

Now you need a sharpener with a guide rod pointing backwards. When the sharpener is laying on the edge of the scissor, the guide rod shall lay on this “upper piece”.
You can drill a hole in the backend of the sharpener if it is metal based. If not, make a holder for it and mount the guide rod in the holder.

This drawing can perhaps give you some ideas about how it can look like…I hope.

vice2wh8.jpg

Shot at 2008-03-21

Good luck!

Thomas
 
Thanks for the post. Your drawing was very helpfull. What is the device that you have pictured? I would be very interested in buying one, but I can't seem to find them.
 
I was recently (briefly) dating a woman who owns her own small, upscale hair studio & jokingly offered to sharpen her scissors for her until she told me what she pays for her scissors- she sends them back to Japan for sharpening. I don't want to be responsible for ruining a $800 pair of scissors. Would any of us here trust a "non-knife" person to sharpen our favorite knives?
 
I just sharpened three pairs of scissors today on my sharpmaker.They came out good.They're only $10 scissors though.
 
1. I am not here to do marketing of my sharpening tools.

2. Minor Spam - link removed.

3. The drawing shows how it can be done with a little struggle. The principle works but it can be done in many different ways. I think that an upstanding thick screw in the backend should work fine. (It also works to adjust the distance from the scissors edge to the “loop” where the guide rod slides thru).

4. The picture shows 2 of sharpening tools from the sharpening system I have innovate. There is three different tools in the system and they work separately and also together. In the picture is the tools Edge and AxePal.

I clamp the scissor with the tool Edge and I clamp it in 2 places = the scissor is fixed and secure in this position. The tool AxePal have a very strong magnetic foot = I can put it where ever I like on the other tools, here it stands on top of the tool Edge. I can adjust the sharpening angle in many different ways here, with the sharpening angle screw with the loop in the top, I can slide the bar up and down along the steel pin, and I can mode the magnetic foot forward or back. In this way I always can find any wanted sharpening angle on any edged tool there is.

5. Use a magic pen, a black whiteboard pen is nice. Paint the edge and use the sharpener and you se how to adjust the sharpening angle. Use a loupe to get it perfect.
If you cant get it perfect, it really do not matter if you change the edge angle 1 degree or so up or down – but – if you do this – you must make a complete new edge in that angle.

If the scissor has been sharpened before, I think you will se an edge that is not straight. Very often is the edge a little “bended” because of more sharpening on the tip of the edge.
The edge is perfectly straight on most scissors – so you perhaps need to make the edge straight to give this scissors a long functional life.

I have seen a lot of scissors people have tried to sharpen (and mostly nearly destroyed) – and many more who was sent for sharpening to pros – and most of them I have seen was not sharpened with any higher quality. But that is here, I do not know if it is the same on other places…

Thomas
 
If you take your time and pay attention to what you're doing, I don't see why you couldn't sharpen barber scissors freehand. I've done a number of pairs myself using a few different methods, all freehand, and I've yet to hear any complaints. Using a marker along the edge will definitely help to show what you're doing.
 
IMO the edge angle on scissors isn't critical, I would guess if you looked at several different makes of hairdresser sheers you'd find the angles might vary quite a bit. So if you happen to change the angle some when sharpening -- whether freehand or with a jig -- that in itself won't affect cutting performance, nor will it if the sharpened edge became a bit convexed even.

More important I believe is: a) that the finish of the sharpened edge bevel not be too polished, or too coarse -- if it's too polished the hair will want to slip when cutting, and; b) that you clean up any burr so the blades work together smoothly.
 
A old trick, take them apart, and dress the flat, not the angle. The way I dress the flats is with fine emery paper placed on a super flat surface (marble, glass ect.)
 
Barber scissors is very far from regular scissors. The principle is the same –but the needed precision on a barber scissor is very, very, far from a normal scissor.

The edge angle on barber scissors is very high and there is a reason for that. The reason is simple. Barbers are the last group of craftsmen who not can sharpen their own edged tools. The producers of barber scissors knows this and they try to marketing their scissors and use the edge angle as an argument for quality in that way that an high edge angle have more material in the edge = the edge will hold longer – and many barbers believe that if the edge hold long time – the quality of the scissor is very good….

The other thing they use for marketing is the material the scissor is made from, different types of steel, Titan, and lately also ceramic.

A bench tool for cutting steel sheets holds 90 degrees angle. An axe has 45 degrees angle, a knife have 22 degrees angle, a razorblade holds 11 degrees angle.
The material who shall be cut decide how much material the edge needs to hold for the pressure – and a barber scissor holds 40 –65 degree…to cut hair…

So, Dog of war is correct, the edge angle is not important. But, if the edge angle goes down to knife angles levell, the scissor must be sharpened about once a week or so – and the barbers can’t sharpen the scissor… This means that you shall sharpen the edge there is on the scissor, it is nice done to the barber who use the scissor.

I have meet many people who clime that they can sharpen barber scissors by free hand – but I have never seen it be done. When I check freehand sharpened scissors – I see clearly that they cannot, they are not even close – but of cause this is on this side of the pond…

It is very big difference between an edge on a knife compare to an edge on a barber scissor, I will say that it is about 10 times harder to get a barber scissor correct compare to a knife edge.
Next time you cut your hair, ask the barber about his scissor and he will probably tell you that if he drops the scissor on the floor once – it will not work after that….

Never touch the inside of the scissor; do not even breathe on it!

The problem is, that if you don’t do the job perfect, the scissor will nag the hair – and it hurts the customers = the barber cant use the scissor.

Some scissors edges shall be polished to cut properly on some types of hair. Other scissors edges shall have micro teeth on the edge to cut free hanging long hair so that the hair do not slide in the scissor.
Hair is not just hair, there is very soft hair and there is hair like wires – and all quality’s between those types. Most barbers have also different scissors for different types of hair.

One thing you can do when you have sharpened the scissor is to cut white cotton and I mean fluffy cotton, not the fabric. The scissor shall be able, without any problem, to cut it easy – just cut it, do not open the scissor, just move it back – and no part from the cotton shall move back together with the scissor. That is one way to test if the edges is good. If the cotton, even a small thread, is not cut…if it was hair, the customer will cry when the scissor drag out his hair instead of chopping it off.

There is 2 types of scissors who must be sharpened with very high precession, it is barber scissors and scissors for cutting fabrics. The edges must be perfect, absolutely perfect.

Now, what happens when you sharpen the scissor by free hand?
The human hand cannot go under 3 degrees variation of the angle = the edge will be slightly convex. That is no big problem during the first sharpening – but it will be a big problem later on, this because the edge will go from slightly convex to steep convex rather fast. The result of this is that the barber must use more and more force – and the scissor will be dull faster and faster.
To get the edge back again, a lot of material must be grinded away = the scissor gets a short life.
Next problem is if the edge is not absolutely straight and with that I mean that the edge is going in a straight line. If not, some of the hair will not be cut complete thru – and it hurts the customer = the scissor is useless.

This is my opinion after about 50 years working with sharpening of edges. I do not know everything, I still learning every day. It is always something new – and really, nothing has change. There are no shortcuts in sharpening. You must do the same things your grandfather did – but perhaps with some new type of sharpeners – on a new type of materials…

Thomas
 
Just my two cents, but I do the sharpening for a few local gals who work in a salon owned by a friend of mine. They all use the small Hitachi shears and I sharpen them on my sharpmaker with the scissor angle off the side. Seems to work fine and the girls are happy with the results.

Cheers,
Jon
 
i have done hundreds of hair cutting scissors with the cardboard wheels. i have a wheel with a fine grit belt attached which will put a super sharp edge on them. i do this holding the scissors freehand. i have even done them on my belt sander with a 400 grit trizact belt. you just have to watch for that burr to come up and once it does you quit and do the other side. when you close each side that removes the burr and thats all i do. i also offer a sharpening servic of both knives and scissors along with sheet metal shears.
 
Are your scissors a bevel or convex edge? If they are convex, do not put a bevel edge on them. It will ruin the scissors. Most convex scissors are hollow ground on the inside and you have to be careful when you use a stone on them. The stone must be flat.
I sharpen hairdresser shears. For convex shears I use a custom made 6" flat hone that I have about $1,000 invested in and a 5000 grit shapton ceramic stone to do the inside.
For a bevel edge I use a Twice-As-Sharp machine.

Joe
 
The last time I talked to my hairdresser about scissors, (she now commutes between shops in uptown NYC and Australia!) she got about 3 months from a pair of $800 scissors, and has never found anyone, anywhere, who could sharpen them and get it right!
When they won't cut right--she throws them out! At $65 for a 20 minute cut (at my discount rate!), it's not worth her hassling, or trying to use scissors that slow her down even 10%.
Good luck with whatever you try.
Greg
 
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