we're going to talk about how to sharpen your scissors you've got sheers scissors
they're basically the same thing and these are both old pairs of decorator
scissors seamstress sewing scissors whatever you want whatever type but
basically they're all sharpened in the same way and um you can make it confusing
but it's so simple to sharpen your own scissors and I want to show you how
to do it with just a saw file like this or a flat file you could use a flat file
too this one would do the job just the same if you wanted to use a wider flat file
but this one's a brand new file and it will cut the steel for these
scissors beautifully and let me show you what it takes to sharpen a pair of
scissors now these scissors here are
they're cutting fine but every so often I notice that see this it's decided not to cut
and it's decided to fold the piece of paper and the reason for that is
more less to do with the sharpness although these definitely do need some
can you get in on that edge you can see this edge is all rusted and actually I
would have trouble cutting myself with these scissors even if I tried so they
do need refining that edge needs refining so I would focus on getting the
rust this is a hollow grind in here so it means it's hollowed this way but this
very edge will be slightly flat and what I would do is I would take this face run
it onto my sharpening plate and take off a very fine surface off here and off
here and then I would focus on the on the shear part here this part here that
needs to be filed and it's filed at a slight angle so when you actually file
even though the file may not be held this way it'll be held at
this angle but it'll be held along the blade like this and we'll do what we
call draw filing and we will pull a continuous stroke from here towards the
tip and off the tip there and that will create a perfect cutting edge for these
scissors so first of all what you need is just one plate and then you can use
any kind of plate if you've got diamond plates this is that's great if you don't
take a piece of Emery paper 250 to 300 grit stick it on just place it onto a
wooden board a flat wooden board preferably and take your shears and just
rub this face along the plate just like this and what that's going to do is just
refine this inside edge along here to give you a straight and clean edge it
gives you some fresh steel so we're just going down to that fresh steel like this
so I'm saying you could do this just with emery paper and right on this edge
here now you can see I'm getting a flat edge and this is what enables the shears
or the scissors to cut right up to the very tip so I would take this facedown
and then I would take this one I've already started on this one you can see
here so that one's ready to go you got that so we've done that now we're going
to focus on the bevel now this is very loose in here can you see how loose this
is we're going to tighten those up in just a minute but first of all these go
in the vise here any kind of vise will usually work removi move it up so that the
other half is less problematic so here now I'm going to this is where I'm my
file is level so I drop drop drop my hand usually about 10 degrees a 10
degree bevel will work now I would normally have my hand on this side and I
pull the file across this way but then my hand is
going to block you so I'm going to put my hand here which works just as
effectively and I start here and I move my file from one end to the other and
I'll show you what I've got before I go any further because these shears
were ground by machine so it's very fast to grind it by machine it's no faster
than doing it with a file but can you see right along this cutting as you can
see those grind marks that's where the grinder is just pulled across a grinding
wheel like this and then it does sharpen them I'm not saying it doesn't but
this is so much cleaner because you get a continuous edge along here so watch
what happens now so I'm going to come along here and this is filing off the
rust obviously but it's also leveling the whole edge of these shears so I'll
do one half here just to show you what I've got halfway along going right into
the corner because I want my scissors to start cutting right at the very
beginning so now can you see along this edge the first half or two-thirds now is
clear steel dead flat this part you can see the contrast between what the
machine gave me I don't like that if I'm cutting with a pair of scissors I would
tend to do it this way so this now take it all the way along and off the edge
try not to drop off the edge you don't want to round the points I'm getting rid of
those grind marks from the machine these tips are this tip part here is harder
than here for some reason so the steel was hardened and that part was harder
than the main body so I've got my main bevel now I'm just taking and dropping
my hand and I'm just taking the corner the hard corner off here
when I put these together now I can feel that edge biting one against the other
that's because there's a burr on the inside and that burr just drops right
off with that one closure so I do the same on this other one now so this one's
rusted too not good for a dressmaker so here now this side here I can tell that
this steel is harder than this one just by the file going across this surface
and it's almost too hard for this file so these are good shears but they would
be hard to sharpen if they were even a fraction harder than they are now if
that happens then you have to go to diamonds you can't continue to sharpen
so in that case I would take this plate here diamond plate and I would come up
here and work this diamond plate round like this
and that will give me a sharp edge too but this file seems to be working fine
I'm trying to get all the marks out left by the machine when I put these two
together again now listen that's the burr breaking off now these scissors
will cut just fine and what I check is they start right at the beginning here
they go all the way to the very tip so now these are doing great but one thing
I have to do is tighten up this here now these are meant to be planished or
hammered right on here because there's no screw to tighten it up this is the
best kind this is the easiest kind one thing you want to watch for is not to go
one punch too hard what we're going to do is take a hammer this is my anvil
this is my hammer and I'd start to tighten here then I just check myself
because one blow too many and I'm passed the point of return
so I'm angling my hammer over because this is a bit like a rivet I'm rounding
over this point a little bit more see it's still quite loose it's going to be
loose here because there's no remember that these often are bent slightly or to
even twisted sometimes the manufacturer actually twists it so that when you when
you shear cutting like this the scissor is pulled in to task there we have it
that's perfect I think now yeah now it doesn't bulk at all it's perfectly
you're going to say well you shouldn't cut paper with scissors yes you should
scissors are meant to cut paper as well as cloth if you say to me you shouldn't
cut paper if you're using cloth scissors then I agree with you so if you're a
dress maker like my mother was I sharpened her scissors
she taught me to sharpen scissors and this is perfect so this other pair
what's wrong with these this is another pair these are hollow ground you can see
the nickel plating here has come off we it's not going to affect the scissors I
really don't like nickel plating but it does stop scissors from rusting for a
long time usually but wherever you get this shear edge nickel plate nickel
cannot remain in place on a sharp edge it's got you it's eventually going to
fracture and it has to fracture now these have been sharpened before because
if they came from the manufacturer they probably although yeah some of the
manufacturers do grind off after the nickel has been applied nickel is just a
hard plating that coats over the steel and stop it doesn't rust so it's perfect
but this is how this is what it takes to sharpen a pair of scissors like this
so now I'm going with a continuous stroke here like that this is what we
call draw filing so that's pulling a spiralled length of steel off that
face we flip over can you do this absolutely you can who could not do this
why would you not be able to do this simple file cost you four pounds and just
draw that file from stem to stern from beginning to end once you've got that
that rust down and those undulations are then it's just a continuous stroke from
this end to that end and you've got a pair of scissors that will cut anything
you want to now they're cutting so beautiful already with nothing else I
need to do nothing else I might need to tighten this up can you see this one
this one has a screw thread in but that screw thread is probably not going to
tighten because I saw the other side so actually it is that's surprising
so that's how you would sharpen that one so that one's fine look at this now you've
got pair of scissors that will last you for a hundred years if you use them
every day these scissors will last you a lifetime get the rust off refile every
year or so probably these are made in Sheffield but they could be made in
Milwaukee I don't know they could be made in India lifetime tool I just
noticed you know I shot I tighten this one here can you see I put this in here
again now I can tighten this screw like that no I can't yeah I can yeah
what happens sometimes when you tighten that screw and you start using the shears
again like this this springs back it's tight in the recess in the countersink
part and sometimes you do have to go in and peen this other side and in this
case we do have to so we're going to do this a little bit differently this time
open your shears and you're going to planish here this side you're going to peen
this at this over here now in this case the screw is flush
with the outside almost it's not quite flush so what I do is and somebody has
done this before I don't know if you can see maybe you can maybe you can't right in
here I can see two punch marks on this side and another punch mark on that side
it's hard to see but what I would do is I would take something like this this is
can you see the point on this this is called a center punch it's just
used by metal workers mostly and what you do is you place your scissors on
here you take your center punch and you go
just off-center a couple of times around the shears just to move the steel
towards the edge like that you see that and what that does is it pushes the
steel towards the side of the hole that was drilled through this piece of
the shears so now this is tighten those up actually tightening just a wee wee
bit too much just a little bit so one blow too many these cut so perfectly
now we can go in and they're cutting fine but now they're too tight if you've
done that it might be that you need a drop of oil that's one thing because
sometimes this is rusted between the two plates and the other thing is if it is
too tight it could be that all you need to do is take a rub or two on this plate
here right along the cutting edge and hold that inside face just a little bit
can you see that steel this black powder is the steel and just that will ease
that entry will give a slight leading-edge that's done it that's all it
needs just a little bit extra on there and the scissors cut right up to the
very tip which is what I wanted there you have it simple tricks very easily oh
there's another thing sometimes if this doesn't quite close in
here sometimes the tip gets worn especially if they've ground it on a
grinding machine it'll take the tip out you don't touch the tip you don't touch
the length of here you just touch you right in here you can take a file and
just file that little bit inside here like this just file three strokes here
and that will usually close at the very point
great thank you