Stainless Steel

As you can imagine, stainless steel is a topic that comes up a lot throughout my day. What grade? What's the hardness? What makes one steel better than another? What happens when you mix different metals? All good questions. So where can you go to find some answers? Right here on the internet.

One of the great things about living in the 21st century is that information is no further away that the touch of a few buttons. Is all the information solid and reputable? Maybe not, but it's there. Just be sure when you read anything on the web that you go into it with the mindset of chewing up the meat and spiting out the bones, but I digress.

One of my students called me the other day and ask me to point him in the right direction when it comes to researching stainless steel. I sent him a few links and wanted to pass them on to you too. Here are the three I sent:

Stainless Steel
Rockwell Hardness
Fun Video Comparing Steel to Cake

Take a look at these sites and others like them. One of the most important things you can do as a professional sharpener is keep yourself informed. Let me know what you learn, and if you have any questions, I'm just an email away. :)

Image : underclasscameraman

IT'S SHOW TIME!!!

IT'S SHOW TIME!!! That's right folks! Time again for another Wolff Show!

Where? Good ol' Greenville, South Carolina. It's one town over from the Wolff Headquarters in Spartanburg and a great place to visit. To check out some of the things to see and do in one of my favorite places on earth, click here.



When? July 17th - 18th, 2010. I'll have a full schedule for you soon.


Which hotel is this? The Greenville/Spartanburg Airport Marriott. For more info on the hotel itself, click here.







How much? That's the great part! It's only costs $89.00 to attend all the seminars and gain access to the vendor room. To book your seat, call Wolff at 800-888-3832. Don't wait too long though! Seating is limited to only 46! So if you want to come, sign up right away! If you choose to stay at the hotel, they've given Wolff a special room rate of $89.00 per night on a limited number of rooms. To see what the rooms look like, click here. To book a room, call 864-297-0300 and ask for the Wolff Industries Rate while these rooms are still available.


What's gonna go on? Let me tell ya...


Sharpening on Wolff Equipment
I'll be doing some indepth training on the Hira-To®, the Ookami Gold®, and the Twice as Sharp®. I'll also be showing how the Corru-Gator and Rotary Blade Sharpeners work as well. Throughout all of these seminars I'll be peppering in some shears that...well...let's just say they'll be "fun" to work on in front of a group *shuddering already*. So whether you're a newbie or a seasoned sharpener, you'll find my presentations interesting.

Clipper Blade Sharpening
As of right now, Bob Schiessl plans to be at the show to go over clipper blade sharpening with you. Bob's been at this for over 20 years and I've seen him teach people more tricks in a hour than most sharpeners could teach a person in a week.

Nipper Sharpening
Mike Borsch will show all of us how to put his nipper sharpener to work. More and more we're seeing Day Spas pop up that offer one stop shopping for beauty needs. That means more places will appreciate it if you can service nail techs as well as stylists. Come learn how.

Up Your Income with more Sales
One of Wolff's top selling sharpeners will be at the show to share some of the methods he uses to sell shears every day; three to five shear or more per day as a matter of fact and how you can do this too. He set a business goal this past year in the six figures and beat it! Whether you're looking to sell shears, or just yourself, Bruce will teach you a number of tips and trick you can take to the bank, literally.

Separate Vendor Room
For the first time since Wolff has started doing these smaller shows, we'll have all of our supporting vendors in a separate room from the seminars. So if you'd like to spend a little more time looking at some of the lines of shears we carry, or some of the other equipment Wolff sells besides our own, you can visit with the owners and representatives of those companies at your leisure. The vendors that plan to be at the show as of this writing are:

• Wolff
• Nebraska Blades
• Clipper Shack
• Kenchii Shears
  
• Shark Fin Shears
• Lucky Hare Shears
• ProLine Shears

More are signing up as I can get in touch with them. I'll be sure to update you on this in the future. This room will also be open late on Saturday night so you can play with the machines, look at products, and socialize with us.


Wolff has set the standard in this industry when it comes to sharpening shows! Everyone that's attended in the past has had nothing but praise for the quality of the education, the time and attention Wolff and it's supporting vendors give each attendee during the show, and the fun and fellowship they get to have with their fellow sharpeners. One of my favorite parts about my job at Wolff is putting together these shows. Come join me and find out what sets the Wolff Shows apart. Call me 800-888-3832 or email me at Jim@wolffind.com if you have questions. I look forward to hearing from you!

Image of Greenville at top of post provided by linkerjpatrick via Flickr.com

Scissors Sharpening Class: Sizing Tips on the Hira-To® Flat Hone

I received a request a while back from a fellow scissors sharpener asking me to show how to match tips on a flat hone. What he meant by matching tips is sometimes you'll find a shear with one blade that is slightly longer than the other. For the blades to cut properly the tips need to match up. You correct this by grinding the tips back until they're even. There also will come a time when you'll need to flatten the tips of the shears down because they've become too pointy after numerous sharpenings. You'd use the same techniques I show on the Wolff Twice as Sharp® and the Wolff Hira-To® Flat Hone in the video below to do this as well. Let me know if you have any questions.


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Scissor Sharpening Class: Sharpen Left Hand Shears on the Hira-To® Flat Hone

Yup. It's been a little while. Sorry about that, but every once and a while I need a little sabbatical from all the writing I do. Especially when I'm in the middle of a big new website project like the one I'm working on right now. (I'll tell you more about that in the future)

Anyway, time to jump back in the saddle and get going again. I few weeks ago I shot a video showing how to sharpen true left hand shears on the Wolff Hira-To® Scissors Sharpening System. A number of people have already viewed the video, but I wanted to post it here for you to view as well.

In this video, I show you how to set your Hira-To® fixture up to sharpen either right or left hand shears. I also show you how to tell the difference between a right handed shear and a true left hand one. If you have any questions concerning any part of this video, please call me at 800-888-3832 or 864-909-3381 and leave a message with your phone number and email. If you'd like to email me a question, my email is Jim@wolffind.com.



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Scissors Sharpening Class: Fixing a BAD Set Problem

I shot the video below over a week ago and I've been intending to write about this, but it's been so busy I've had a hard time getting away. Finally things have slowed down just a little, so here is a run down of what brought this video about.

A scissor sharpener called me and asked if I might be able to help him with a problem. He had made a mistake on one of his machines and damaged the blade of one of his customers shears. He said it was bent and didn't feel he could fix it. Seemed like a challenge, so I told him to send it on.

When I received it I saw what he meant! Boy was this shear bent in a bad spot!!! Right at the early entry! In fact, it was bend so badly it almost looked like the shear had a full bend of set in it, but in the wrong direction. I did my best to let you see this in the video below, so I'm going to send you there to view what the blade looked like and what I had to do to fix it. So watch the video now, then read the rest.


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As I said in the video, I had to do some more work to finish this shear; so I went into the sharpening training center and started to resharpen it. While doing so though, I noticed that there was a snake in the blade (this is a bend in the blade that looks like an S) about a 1/4" back from the tip. The blade also looked fatigued so I really didn't want to do a lot of bending on it because I knew it would break. I did a few test passes over my water stone after I bent as much of the snake out of the blade as I dared, but I still didn't have the shear set to the point where I could hone a consistent rideline without causing an unsightly wave. Fortunately, I had a trick up my sleeve, the Ookami Honing Blocks.

These blocks are much more forgiving than water stones and coming in handy when you have a shear with inconsistent set problems. I worked the inside of the blades on these blocks, reformed an acceptable rideline, and then polished and reassembled the shear. It cut well when I was done.

All in all I had about 50 minutes in this shear. A little too long for my taste. If I had run into a shear that was damaged this bad in the field I would have sold the customer a new one. Remember, I often say that there's a big difference between scissors repair and scissors maintenance. Repair takes a lot longer and is less profitable and often a heavily damaged shear just isn't worth saving, but working on shears like this is also part of the fun and learning experience in the business of scissors sharpening. While this may not have been a profitable 50 minutes, imagine if I had been a sharpener trying to get into a salon and someone handed me a challenge like this. When I fixed it, do you think that would carry some weight? You bet it would!

Having the right tools and knowledge is essential if your goal is to become a successful sharpener, and two tools in particular saved the day in this case; the scissors press and the Ookami Honing Block Kit. Concerning the knowledge side of this equation, dealing with a problem shear like this requires sharpening training and/or years of experience. This kind of training is something I can help you with. So if you'd like to find out more about the sharpening training I offer, give me a call at Wolff at 800-888-3832 or email me at Jim@wolffind.com. Also know that I'm available for sharpening support as well. So please call or email me if you have questions concerning anything I did in this post, or with any other sharpening questions you may have.

If you're in the market for any of the Wolff  sharpening machines, be sure to give me a call before you buy. I know all the best places to buy at the best price! Call 864-381-8697 or email me at otenews@gmail.com.

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See How to Sharpen Nippers

Since Wolff has started carrying the Nipper Sharpener I've had a number of questions about how the unit works. One the easiest ways I could think of to answer some of these questions was to put one of the manufacturer's YouTube videos on Jim Sharp. Take a look at how this unit works and let me know if you have any questions. My number is 800-888-3832 if you need me.


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The price for this unit is $1295.00 for the 110 volt unit, and $1495.00 for the 220 volt unit.

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Kenchii's new Hearts on Fire Shear

Kenchii has a new shear called the Hearts On Fire. It is a unique model and the industries very first red titanium coated shear. It's now available in Level 3 material on the beauty side and a Level 2 version of the Hearts On Fire model will be released at the Atlanta Pet Fair for Groomers.

Here are some of the specs:

Beauty Shear
Material: Level 3
MSRP: $279.00 all sizes
Edge: Semi Convex
Sizes available: 5, 5.5, 6 and 32 teeth thinner.
Offers: Deep Red coating with beautiful hearts vines pattern.
Extra comfortable Anatomical thumb.
Extra Slim tension dial assembly for easy adjustment.
Exceptional balance and feel.

Grooming Shear
Material LEVEL 2
MSRP: $189.00
Edge: Semi Convex
Sizes Available: 7, 8, 9 straight and curved and 44 teeth thinner
Also available in 3 pcs sets which includes 8" straight, 8" curved and 44 teeth thinners
Lefty Models available: 8" straight, 8" curved and 44 teeth thinners
Offers: Deep Red coating with beautiful heart & vines pattern.
Extra comfortable Anatomical thumb.
Durable matching tension dial assembly for easy adjustment.
Exceptional balance and feel.

This is an awesome looking shear! Email me at Jim@wolffind.com if you have any questions about it.

Scissors Sharpening: Proper Pass Across the Twice as Sharp®

This may seem elementary, but I wanted to make this video because it will give me a place to send sharpeners when they struggle with this issue. A couple of problems I see when sharpeners sharpen either low-end grooming or barber shears on the Twice as Sharp®, is they either gouge out the early entry of a shear or they round the tips. This is just a short video showing how to keep from doing this.


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