Scissors

Different types of scissors - sewing (left), paper (middle), kitchen (right)

Scissors are hand operated cutting instruments consisting of a pair of metal blades connected in such a way that the blades meet and cut materials placed between them when the handles are brought together. They are used for cutting various thin materials, for example paper, cardboard, metal foil, thin plastic, cloth, rope and wire. Scissors can also be used to cut hair and food.

Scissors and shears exist in a wide variety of forms depending on their intended uses. Children's scissors, used only on paper, have dull blades to ensure safety. Scissors used to cut hair or fabric must be much sharper. The largest shears used to cut metal or to trim shrubs must have very strong blades.

Specialized scissors include sewing scissors, which often have one sharp point and one blunt point for intricate cutting of fabric, and nail scissors, which have curved blades for cutting fingernails and toenails.

Special kinds of shears include pinking shears, which have notched blades that cut cloth to give it a wavy edge, and thinning shears, which have teeth that thin hair rather than trim it.

Terminology

The noun "scissors" is treated as a plural noun, and therefore takes a plural verb ("these scissors are"). Alternatively, people refer to this tool as "a pair of scissors", in which case it (a pair) is singular and therefore takes a singular verb ("this pair of scissors is"). (In theory each of the two blades of the tool is a "scissor" in its own right, although in practice such usage is seldom heard.)

The word shears is used to describe larger instruments of similar kind. As a general rule:

• scissors have blades less than 6 in (15 cm) long and usually have handles with finger holes of the same size.
• shears have blades longer than 6 in (15 cm) and often have one small handle with a hole that fits the thumb and one large handle with a hole that will fit two or more fingers.

History

Scissors from second-century Asia Minor.

The earliest known scissors appeared in the Middle East about 3,000 or 4,000 years ago. They were of the 'spring scissors' type, consisting of two bronze blades connected at the handles by a thin, curved strip of bronze. This strip served to bring the blades together when squeezed and to pull them apart when released. Scissors dating back to the fourteenth century B.C.E. have been found in ancient Egypt.

Scissors from the Chinese Tang dynasty (618-907 C.E.).

Cross-bladed scissors were invented by the Romans around CE 100.

Pivoted scissors of bronze or iron, in which the blades were connected at a point between the tips and handles, were used in ancient Rome, China, Japan, and Korea. Spring scissors continued to be used in Europe until the sixteenth century, and the idea is still used in almost all modern scissors.

Early manufacture

During the Middle Ages and Renaissance, spring scissors were made by heating a bar of iron or steel, then flattening and shaping its ends into blades on an anvil. The center of the bar was heated, bent to form the spring, then cooled and reheated to make it flexible.

Pivoted scissors were not manufactured in large numbers until 1761, when Robert Hinchliffe produced the first pair of modern-day scissors made of hardened and polished cast steel. He lived in Cheney Square, London, and was reputed to be the first person to put out a signboard proclaiming himself "fine scissor manufacturer".

During the nineteenth century, scissors were hand-forged with elaborately decorated handles. They were made by hammering steel on indented surfaces known as bosses to form the blades. The rings in the handles, known as bows, were made by punching a hole in the steel and enlarging it with the pointed end of an anvil.

Fiskars scissors, 1967.

In a part of Sweden (now in Finland) an ironworks was started 1649 in the hamlet "Fiskars" between Helsinki and Turku. In 1830 a new owner started the first cutlery works in Finland, making, among other items, scissors with the trade mark Fiskars. Fiskars Corporation introduced new methods in the manufacture of scissors in 1967.

Description and operation

A pair of scissors consists of two pivoted blades. Most types of scissors are not particularly sharp; it is primarily the shearing between the two blades which cuts. Children's scissors are even less sharp, and the blades are often protected with plastic.

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Mechanically, scissors are a first-class, double-lever with the pivot acting as the fulcrum. For cutting thick or heavy material, the mechanical advantage of a lever can be exploited by placing the material to be cut as close to the fulcrum as possible. For example, if the applied force (i.e., the hand) is twice as far away from the fulcrum as the cutting location (e.g., piece of paper), the force at the cutting location is twice that of the applied force at the handles. Scissors cut material by applying a local shear stress at the cutting location which exceeds the material's shear strength.

Specialized scissors, like bolt cutters exploit leverage by having a long handle but placing the material to be cut close to the fulcrum.

Kitchen scissors

A pair of kitchen scissors

Kitchen scissors, also known as kitchen shears, are similar to common scissors. The main difference is the location of the fulcrum. Kitchen scissors have the fulcrum located farther from the handles to provide more leverage and thus more cutting power. High quality kitchen scissors can easily cut through the breastbone of a chicken.^{[citation needed]}

'Handed' scissors

Most scissors are best suited to use with the right hand, but left-handed scissors are designed for use by the left. Left-handed scissors have handles which are comfortable to hold in the left hand. Because scissors have overlapping blades, they are not symmetric. This asymmetry is true regardless of the orientation and the shape of the handles: the blade that is on top always forms the same diagonal regardless of orientation. Human hands are also asymmetric and when closing the thumb and fingers do not close vertically, but have a lateral component to the motion. Specifically, the thumb pushes out and fingers pull inwards. For right-handed scissors held in the right hand, the thumb blade is closer to the body so that the natural tendency of the right hand is to force the cutting blades together. Conversely, if right-handed scissors are held in the left hand, the natural tendency of the left hand would be to force the cutting blades laterally apart. Furthermore, with right-handed scissors held by the right-hand, the shearing edge is visible, but when used with the left hand the cutting edge of the scissors is behind the top blade, and one cannot see what is being cut.

Some scissors are marketed as ambidextrous.

left-handed (left) and right-handed (right) scissors

They have symmetric handles so there is no distinction between the thumb and finger handles, and they have very strong pivots so that the blades simply rotate and do not have any lateral give. However, most "ambidextrous" scissors are in fact still right-handed. Even if they successfully cut, the blade orientation will block the view of the cutting line for a left-handed person. True ambidextrous scissors are possible if the blades are double-edged and one handle is swung all the way around (to almost 360 degrees) so that the back of the blades become the new cutting edges[1]. Patents (U.S. Patent 3978584 (PDF)) have been awarded for true ambidextrous scissors.

Using scissors designed for the wrong hand is difficult for most people, even for left-handers who have become accustomed to using the more readily available right-handed scissors. They have to unnaturally force the blades together to cut and stretch their necks over the top blade to see what is being cut. This unnatural motion can also cause marks on the hand, sores, and eventually calluses.

Shears

Lever shears (goldsmith tool).

Although often used interchangeably with "scissors," the term shears is used by people in the industry for scissors longer than 15 cm (about 6 inches). In addition, some assert that a pair of scissors has symmetric handles, whereas a pair of shears has a smaller handle for the thumb and a larger handle for two or more fingers. Like scissors, shears combine slightly offset jaws to cut material through physical shear, and combine this with levers to apply a considerable shear force. Shears are usually intended for cutting much heavier material than scissors do.

Specialised scissors

There are several specialised scissors and shears used for different purposes. Some of these are:

• Pinking shears are scissors with a serrated cutting edge for cutting cloth so that the fabric does not fray.
• Tin snips are scissors for cutting through sheet metal like tin plate, or galvanised iron.
• Pruning shears (secateurs) and loppers are gardening scissors for cutting through branches of trees and shrubs.
• Trauma shears, or "tuff cuts", are robust scissors used in emergency medical response and rescue.
• Trimming scissors are used for thinning thick hair to avoid a bushy look
• Grass and hedge shears are used for trimming grass and hedges.
• Jaws of Life (see Hydraulic rescue tools) for cutting heavy sheet metal in a rescue response
• Throatless shears are used for cutting complex shapes in sheet metal
• Wool shears are used for collecting wool from an animal's fleece
• Poultry shears are to cut poultry.
• Hair shears - for cutting hair as a cosmetologist or hairdresser, or for pet grooming.

See also

• Bolt cutters cut through heavy wire and bolts.
• Nippers cut small pieces out of tile.
• Hemostat resembles a pair of scissors but has a locking clamp instead of a blade; it is used in surgery and does not cut at all.
• Pliers used for holding and crimping metal or wire.
• Tool

External links

• Surgical scissors on WikiSurgery.
• Dissecting & Surgical Scissors Dissecting & Surgical Scissors.

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