8 Mistakes You’re Making When Sharpening Your Hair Cutting Shears

A sharp pair of hair cutting shears is a key tool for a professional stylist. When hair cutting shears need sharpening they can affect your work and make it difficult to achieve precision and a polished finish. It’s important to make sure that you know how to deal with hair cutting shears that need sharpening, as there are a lot of mistakes that are very easy to make.

 

1. You’re using aluminium foil

It’s common for hairdressers to be told they should fold over aluminium foil and then cut through this several times with their hair cutting shears. However this will round the cutting edge of the shear and therefore the specific blade design will no longer achieve the desired technique.

2. Sandpaper or Emery Board

Have you ever thought about cutting through sandpaper or using an emery board to sharpen your shears or to smooth out dents? If so then it’ll actually be a good idea to forget that as soon as possible. This method can permanently damage the inside of the blade and will result in having to remove more metal to be removed in order to correct the shape of the blade back to its original design.

3. Buying home sharpening equipment

There are many products out there you can purchase from a shop however these off the shelf sharpen tools won’t work. There are many steps involved when sharpening is carried out correctly and no shop brought sharpening equipment will allow you to cater for the different steps in this process.

4. Glass Jars, stones or other objects

You’re using other at home methods, such as opening your shears up and closing the blade around various objects, and repeating this action. Glass jars are a common example for this, however while being very dangerous and risking the jar shattering, it will also ruin your shears.

5. Using a ‘Man With a Van’ service

Taking your hair cutting shears to a underqualified service can result in significantly shortening the life of your shears this is because they will use techniques that removes to much metal. They can also cause an improper arch adjustment or apply excessive heat causing the shear to dull quicker.

6. Confusing scissor sharpening and knife sharpening

These two are not the same thing and it’s a mistake to think that you can sharpen your hair cutting shears as you would do a knife and therefore sharpening rods or sticks that are used in kitchens should stay there and out of salons.

7.  A lack of understanding of your shears

There are many factors that an expert will understand about your shears that will affect the way in which they should be sharpened; the type of edge the shear has, if there is damage to the “ride line”, whether a “burr” has developed are all factors that need to be examined.

8. Not using a professional sharpening service

The mistakes outlined in 1-7 of this blog can be costly to your hair cutting shears and could also invalid your warranty because they have been tampered with. However if you have been using them then that means you will be making mistake no: 8. You need to make sure you are using a certified sharpening expert because they will rule out the damage made through these other techniques and also provide you with results that will last for longer.