 Why Traditional Sharpening Doesn’t Work...
 Despite the many advances in technology, until recently, the technology behind sharpening a shear has not changed. Most stylists' have seen it and worst, heard the grinding as their shear is turned to metal powder. The machines used range from cheep & simple to expensive & simple. The basic principal behind them is there is a grinding wheel, disk or stone along with a device that holds the shear blade at some presumed angle. The blade is brought into contact with the grinding mechanism, placed in contact with the abrasive then pulled along some hopefully straight path. After this the blade is exposed to some form of buffing felt or pad where the grinding marks are smoothed out.
When doing this process a burr typically develops on the inside of the blade that must be removed by laying the blade flat on some type of abrasive medium and pulled along with light pressure. The end result is the blade will have some level of cutting edge, it certainly will not be aligned with the edge on the opposite blade nor will it be straight and it will be suffering from heat stresses which will lead to rapid dulling – typically, within only weeks.
One would wonder why anyone would want this service, and why the manufacturers themselves use very similar systems. Not surprisingly, there is a host of sharpening systems available ranging from cheep & simple to expensive, complicated & costly. They all, however, work the same and deliver the same damaging results. In any other industry there would be engineers who develop correct technology to eliminate these issues, the shear industry has clearly been absent that advantage, until recently.
The issues surrounding each of these systems is the heat imparted to the cutting edge during sharpening, lack of control over the blade, failure to hone the inside portion of the blade, inability to control the geometric profile being ground on the blade and removal of excess material. It is no wonder sharpening conjures up confusion among stylists’, and with so many false stories being passed by those who simply do not understand the subject it can become frustrating. Many stylists’ have resulted to sending their shears to other states where they hear rumor of better results, or returning them to the manufacturer where some high school kid grinds out shear after shear in the evening. These efforts are of little gain, because they use the same technology.
The following sections detail the complexity of how steel reacts on the cutting edge and the area surrounding it. It will explain why the type of steel is important, and also address the many other requirements necessary to obtain a sharp shear. All Information is presented in a non-biased format. The physics and mechanics of a cutting edge remains fixed. We hope the following explanation brings some level of clarity to this misrepresented subject.
Next Chapter: The New Way to Correctly Sharpen |
