Services - Pat's Sharpening

Some beveled edge grooming shears come from the factory with corrugation.  Normally, I leave the corrugations and sharpen the other blade.  The finger blade (the one with corrugations) is designed to hold the hair / fur, and the thumb blade cuts it.  Sometimes, the corrugations are too worn or have too much damage.  I would need to remove the damage by sharpening off the corrugations, only when needed.  These corrugations are very small and hard to reproduce without the same exact factory equipment. As such, I am not able to reproduce them exactly (i.e., the exact number of teeth per inch).  What I am able to do is re-create them and the corrugations will be a fine tooth per inch pattern and close to the original.  I do not charge extra to put on the corrugations.

An alternative version to putting the corrugations back on, which I call "micro serrations / corrugations", can be done.  The finger blade is sharpened on the coarse grit disc, and left that way.  It simulates and functions as micro serrations / corrugations to hold the hair / fur in place while the thumb blade cuts.  Please refer to the picture above of my version of an edge with micro serrations / corrugations.  The picture shows an edge sharpened on a relatively coarse 320 grit disc.  

Corrugations hold the hair to prevent pushing.  However, a corrugated blade is not necessarily sharp.  The alternative micro serrations are a better alternative because in addition to holding the hair to prevent pushing, the blade with the micro serrations is also sharp.  Theoretically, you will now have a shear that could potentially last twice as long because there are two sharp blades sharing the workload instead of one.  There is a check off line on the order form for you to indicate you approve of my version of micro serrations / corrugations to replace the regular corrugations, if the original corrugations have to be removed due to excessive damage / wear.

Shear alignment is important.  Shear blades have a slight bow or curve to them called "set".  It is hard to see it unless you are looking for it.  If you hold the shears in front of you horizontally, with the shears closed, and so you can see the top and bottom blades at the same time, you will see the set.  Good lighting is needed.  See picture above.  This image represents good set.  There should be a space between the two blades, and it should be about the thickness of several sheets of printer paper.  At this point, the blades should only be touching in two places.  Behind the pivot screw and at the tips.  Too much set or too little set is not good.  It has to be just right.  Another way to see the set is to hold the shears in the same manner as above.  While holding the shears in this position, open the blades all the way.  Then slowly close the blades all the way.  As the blades are being closed, you should be able to see where the blades touch.  Sometimes the shadow of where they touch can be seen.  They should touch in only one spot at a time.  If there are gaps in where they touch or the spot flattens out in some areas, the set is bad.  Bad set will negatively affect the performance of the shears.  The edge of the blades can be as sharp as a razor, but if the set is bad they simply won't cut.

If the set is bad, i will attempt to contact you to get your permission to perform set work.  Set work can do wonders to fix a shear. Set work involves bending the blades.   However, set work can be risky because the blades can snap in half.  Usually breakage will occur because the blades are made of cast metal, which is relatively brittle.  I will never bend a cast metal blade.  It is fairly safe to bend forged steel, but there is still a small chance of breakage due to hidden manufacturing defects.  Your permission will be needed before any set work is done, as I do not want to be financially responsible for replacing your shears if they break.

Instead of a phone call, and to save us both time, i have included a line on the order form for you to initial if you are giving me permission to do set work.