Is there a way to sharpen my friggin' tiny Leatherman scissors?

[TheMightyGoat]

I have one of those mini Leatherman multitools with the scissors as the main function (where the pliars normally are) that I carry with me every day. The edge is so high that they might as well not be sharpened at all, but still, they work well for most tasks such as cutting paper or string. There are some things, though, that these do not work well at all for, and sharpening would help that. If I could take them appart, I could sharpen them on my stone, but as most of you probably know Leatherman has made the annoying habbit of making it's products damn near impossible to take appart without destroying.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

If you don't have a hone that small, make one by attaching a strip of sandpaper to a piece of wood.

-Cliff

 

[Phil Elmore]

I sharpened the scissors on my Micra with one of those little EZE-LAP pen-style hones. It worked quite well.

 

[Saunterer]

For mine, I usually just cut some 240 grit sandpaper. A pass or two, cutting a 4 inch strip does the trick for me.

Give it a try,

Chris

 

[Jeff Clark]

You normally do not take scissors apart when you sharpen them. Normal scissors can be open beyond 90-degrees and you can use a full sized bench hone or file to sharpen them. I assume your problem is that the leatherman scissors only open 45-degrees or so and you can't fit a hone into the angle.

As Cliff suggests you need a hone that fits into the angle between the blades. I sometimes sharpen scissors with a small mill bastard file. Scissors are usually soft enough that a file will work and the roughness that a bastard file produces works well on scissors. Scissors cut thicker material better when surface roughness prevents the material from sliding out of the blades. There are tapered to a knife edge that would fit your need. You can also take a strip of wood like a paint mixing stick and whittle down the top edges to make room to fit between the blades. Leave one side with its original flat surface and whittle away the opposite sides edges for relief. Glue Wet-or-Dry silicon carbide paper to the flat side. I would use around 320 to 600 grit depending on how much you need to remove.

When you hone scissors you are removing material at almost a right angle to the faces of the blades. It is most critical that you create a clean bevel that comes to the shear faces of the blades. You are creating a shearing junction rather than a knife edge. Try and match the original grind that is on the blades. At the very end very lightly go over the face of the blades with 600 grit paper to take off slight burrs. Do this with the paper on a flat surface so that it does not tend to wrap around your sheer edge. Work across the blades not along the blades. You want to maintain microserrations at the sheering edges so that they have grab.

 

[Jeff Clark]

I had a typo above. Where I said: "There are tapered to a knife edge that would fit your need" I meant to say: "There are files that are tapered to a knife edge that would fit your need"