If you have been paying attention you will know that barras blades has a slightly odd ordering system as I ask for any problems about anything being sent to me via the online shop

This order came in recently and this is some of what I see.

There is 5 blades coming in that have been sharpened by another sharpener. If I was a bit more ruthless then I should sharpen them and say the other sharpener did a terrible job.

That would be an easy win for me and a small dent on the reputation of the customers first sharpener

But i’m not doing that as the customer had contacted me first saying they had problems and I asked them to send in their clipper at the same time which they did. When they filled in the online form they also gave a huge hint as to what the problem was.

But lets not jump ahead

So in comes the customers clippers along with the blades and I did an initial inspection and I found two problems. Firstly the blade drive was well past it’s replacement point and there was also damage to the hinge with the sides being worn as well as the top bar being broken off. The damage to the blade drive and the wear on the side of the hinge will of been due to constant use. The broken top bar of the hinge is more then likely the clipper was dropped at one point.

I also broke out the iPad and it’s sound level app to give the clipper a wee test to show a before and after.

Video below and you see it is 75dBs I could explain the decibel scale but you’d be quite bored

So clipper reassembled and lets stick the same blade on it and run it past the iPad sound meter

As you can see the clipper is now quieter reading 71dB peak which is half the volume as the decibel scale is a logarithmic scale which is the potential for me to get deep into the weeds. But i won’t

We started this blogpost with some snagging blades and they haven’t been forgotten about.

All the blades where inspected using the blade push which makes it easier to check the condition of the blade and looking at these blades I could not see any problems with nothing odd in the grind that could be seen by eye. There was no signs of wear or build up of cack.

So I got Dead Elmo out of his storage drawer and put him to use.

All blades tested and no problems found

Conclusion

Now all of these blades have been tested and I could not find any problems with the blades but they had been sent to me as problem blades.

Why did these blades end up in my hands?

The first thing I will say is that all of the sharpeners I know will test blades after sharpening as they don’t want to send back blades to a customer which are faulty as you get very few chances to annoy a customer before you lose that customer.

The next thing I will say is you get a real measure of a company when things go wrong.

In this case I am 99% sure that the other sharpener did not do anything wrong and the fault was firmly with the state of the clippers.

So what should you do as a groomer if you get blades back and they fail?

• Clean the blades as sometimes a build up of hair will lift the cutter off the comb

• Test the blades on another clipper

• CONTACT THE SHARPENER as nothing is more annoying then a customer vanishing and you not knowing why. Any decent sharpener will sort it out.

If you haven’t got a spare dog for testing blades I would recommend getting some fake fur for testing as it can be a great thing when you aren’t certain about something and you are under pressure. I would also reccomend having a spare set of clippers which are in good condition. Not an old pair that you used for years and then got sick of and shoved in the back of a cupboard as a just incase. Also have some blades which are spare back-ups either new or freshly sharpened