It is said that 10% of people are left handed. Most scissors are designed to be used in a right hand. Using a right handed scissor in your left hand is difficult. So it is not unusual to find high end scissors can be bought in left or right hands. The difference between left and right handed is the way the grind is and how the blades are put together.

This causes a minor hassle in a few ways as the scissor sharpening machinery are set up for right hand scissors.

To ensure you get the right angle of grind on the blades you need to swap the wheels over on the TAS which isn’t a an overly difficult task.

You need to take the side covers off, if you still have them fitted. Then undo the nuts which are right and left handed threads.

The wheels are then swapped over and the nuts retightened

Because the diamond wheel (shiny one) has an aluminum centre you don’t have to worry about any balance issues

After the grinding and honing is done to one blade the same process is carried out on the other blade. Then some sharpener magic happens with the blades being de-burred, reassembled and checked etc.

Then come the hard part

Testing which isn’t quite as difficult as you would first think but lets look at the problem first

From this the first thing that should become screamingly obvious is it is difficult for a right handed person to test a pair of left handed scissors. Bit of a bummer if you are right handed and have a left handed customer.

What isn’t so screamingly obvious is. You can increase the performance of pair of scissors by pushing harder. Fine for me as i’d using the scissor at most 5 times to test it. Also I have quite high hand strength due to what what I do. For a slightly built hair dresser who is using scissor all day putting on alot of side pressure on the blades is going to be tiring and might bring along RSI. Also alot of side pressure will quickly blunt a high end razor sharp scissor.

For the more knowledgeable of you and those who have been reading the machinery pages you will know the TAS is used for bevel and semi bevel type scissors.

It isn’t suitable for high end convex/Japanese style scissors.

For these you need a much more expensive and capable machine called a flat hone

So what complex reconfiguration is needed of this machine?

See below