Top quality scissors are difficult to come by with the mass of cheap imports flooding the market. However, there are a couple of companies in Sheffield that still make scissors by hand resulting in the best quality scissor offering a clean shear rather than rough cut often associated with those old school scissors that never quite did the job as accurately as you wanted.
Making a pair of scissors is no easy process. The scissors start off as individual blank blades which are smithed (straightened), assembled, and then tempered in furnaces of different heats. The first furnace is white hot at about 900ºc. The second is kept at a golden-coloured 'straw heat,' 840ºc, which levels out the temperature. This process hardens the blade but not the handles of the scissors which remain relatively malleable so they can be adjusted at the end. The scissors are quenched in a bath of oil and water for five to 10 minutes. Water alone hardens the blades too quickly and makes them brittle but oil absorbs the heat slowly and gently, lubricating the metal. After quenching the scissors are tempered in another furnace at 120ºc. The handles are smoothed and polished, a process known as bow-dressing. Finally the scissor blades are ground and sharpened, glazed, plated, buffed, polished and packaged for selling; Made in Sheffield scissors, part of the city's heritage.
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