Making a pair of shears/scissors... need suggestions.

A

AlexFrost

Joined
Jul 17, 2013
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First off, Hi I'm new to the forums but have been lurking around for a while.

A stylist friend heard that I was starting to make knives and asked if I would look into making her a pair of shears. I've been looking at current offerings from the major players trying to get ideas and so far I'm not impressed. One company even advertised their steel as "Hardened to a Rockwell hardness of 5" which just made me chuckle.

However, I'm a bit of a loss when it comes to what steel to use. It has to be stainless with excellent edge holding verging on phenomenal (apparently many stylists never sharpen their shears... ever) but since the cutting action of shears is different than say a kitchen knife I keep running into the issue of the unknown. I don't really know what I'm looking for and there's not a lot of good information about making shears out on the internet.

So has anyone out there ever made scissors or shears for hair stylists? What did you use and how did they turn out?
 
Scissors are difficult to make. Scissors for a stylist are extremely hard to make. If you are new at this craft, it is doubtful you have the skill or equipment to make a pair of stylist shears. These can take a lot of time to make, and sell in the $1000 plus range for good ones.

You might want to go on a few of the scissor forums and see what is entailed.
 
Scissors and shears are an entirely different world from knives. There is even a guild for scissor sharpening. Things like distal taper, bend, size/shape of the bows, pivot are all important to the overall performance.

CTS XHP steel would be a good choice I think.


-Xander
 
Im married to a dog groomer who spends more on her shears than I did on my grinder, She just wants me to sharpen them, god help me if she gets it in her head I can make them.
 
I've got a few handy ideas for how to make a pair of shears with minimal equipment and a high level of precision but until I actually make them it's all just theory. I've also got a few cool design ideas that may or might not work but the proof will be in the pudding. Right now it's planning planning planning and trying to find people that have been there before.

@wbeatty I feel your pain. I'm a chef and the woman I'm seeing is taking full advantage of that. There are other compensations though :)
 
AlexFrost said:
One company even advertised their steel as "Hardened to a Rockwell hardness of 5" which just made me chuckle.
Click to expand...

That pretty much has to be a misprint. Most steel is in the realm of 20 to 30 rc when fully annealed.

-Sandow
 
I consider myself a pretty good maker, and have lots of special things, like diamond laps, a mill, a tapmaster, etc..
I made one pair of scissors for my son ( who was a hair stylist), and frankly, it was mediocre at best. If I had used Hitachi white steel, it might have been better, but it still was only a so-so pair of shears.

I can say from personal experience that making shears isn't an easy thing the do. I can't see minimal equipment doing much even with high precision ( and those words don't go together very often.)
 
Like the other posters, I consider myself reasonably knowledgable about making knives, but I wouldn't really know where to start to make a serious pair of stylist's shears. (or a straight razor, for that matter). It's just an entirely different tool and skillset.

As to steel selection, I have more confidence; based on corrosion-resistance, the ability to take a very crisp keen edge and edge-holding, I would opt for CTS-XHP or ElMax.
 
I wish that I could draw but that's a skill that I've never been terribly good at. Here's a basic not to scale diagram. The shape of the blades will be different but I wanted to give a rough idea of how they would work and what I was trying to do.

shears1.jpg


The shanks would be straight with little notches cut into the outside edges. The finger loops/handles could be screwed on anywhere along the shank depending on the stylist's individual preferences and would lock into the notches. Different height/size finger loops can be made as well for different grip styles. This uses way less steel than the regular style and it's easier to shape finger loops out of G10 or CF than it is to do them out of steel. It could also be lighter. As an added plus if I mess up I can just toss the finger loops and make new ones fairly cheaply.

As for a minimum of tools, I figure that between my drill press, belt grinder, granite surface plate and other random gewgaws it should be doable.
 
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