Peter Rideout
Member
- Messages
- 1,668
- Location
- Nova Scotia, 45°N 64°W
As some know, part of our little enterprise here is a small flock of sheep, wool breeds, about 35 animals most of the time.
Shearing is a job for a fit person in their 20's, not a semi-fit guy in his 50's who works mostly in an office, and we have just such a young fellow who comes and does them for us. Once in a while though, we need to do one ourselves, like tonight, a ewe on the verge of lambing who had a big woolly fleece that was going to interfere with easy nursing.
So, we have a decent set of electric shears and other implements for this purpose. They have to be kept super sharp to do a decent job and the grime and grit found in the wool soon renders them dull. So, we have a couple of sets of blades.
Here's the point: I sent a pair out for sharpening last fall. They were gone for weeks, I had to hound the place to get them done and they charged me $25.
How hard can it be to sharpen these myself? The matching upper and lower blades appear to be just machined flat and slide past each other for the cutting action. It seems like the "scary sharp" method would work for this, just lapping them on a flat plate to which various grits have been applied.
Any thoughts on this?
Regards
Peter
Shearing is a job for a fit person in their 20's, not a semi-fit guy in his 50's who works mostly in an office, and we have just such a young fellow who comes and does them for us. Once in a while though, we need to do one ourselves, like tonight, a ewe on the verge of lambing who had a big woolly fleece that was going to interfere with easy nursing.
So, we have a decent set of electric shears and other implements for this purpose. They have to be kept super sharp to do a decent job and the grime and grit found in the wool soon renders them dull. So, we have a couple of sets of blades.
Here's the point: I sent a pair out for sharpening last fall. They were gone for weeks, I had to hound the place to get them done and they charged me $25.
How hard can it be to sharpen these myself? The matching upper and lower blades appear to be just machined flat and slide past each other for the cutting action. It seems like the "scary sharp" method would work for this, just lapping them on a flat plate to which various grits have been applied.
Any thoughts on this?
Regards
Peter