Sharpeners need well-honed skills

LEVANT – Sharp scissors are essential to those of us who sew our own clothing or quilts or do embroidery. Pet groomers and hairstylists also rely on well-honed clippers. Those implements are used a lot, and sooner or later they get dull and need sharpening.

Who you gonna call? Well, you could start with Dan Oldershaw of Levant, owner of Yankee Clipper Sharpening.

Penny Gipson, who works at Carden Kennels in Bangor, has been an animal groomer for 15 years.

“Clipper blades need sharpening once a month during the summer months [the busy season],” she said. “Tools are expensive. Usually I have 20 blades and four pairs of scissors at a time that need sharpening. If they aren’t sharpened right, it ruins them. I can’t do my job unless I have sharp tools.”

Oldershaw’s father, Richard, began the blade sharpening business in 1997 in Howland after he retired from a career in the Coast Guard.

“When he decides to learn something,” Dan Oldershaw said of his father, “he learns everything just so – he called the makers of the sharpening machines and learned from them. When Dad first started, he knew a groomer who didn’t think clipper blades could be sharpened. The groomer threw the old blades in a box and Dad took them and showed the groomer that they could be sharpened.”

Attention to the details of the cutting edge was passed from father to son when Dan Oldershaw served an apprenticeship with his father in 2004 to learn the sharpening trade.

“Dan is the best sharpener I’ve ever known. His father taught him well,” said Gipson.

The first thing Oldershaw learned was that you “gotta sharpen them the way they came.” That means working with the angle of the blade, removing as little metal as possible during the process, cleaning the implement, adjusting the blade tension and putting things back together correctly so that the implement works smoothly and effortlessly – and testing the operation.

“There’s quite a lot to it,” Oldershaw said.

He also received training from scissors-sharpening machine manufacturing companies and from Larry Brooks, a nationally known master sharpener “who gives seminars around the country,” Oldershaw said. “I take advantage of those whenever I can. I need to do it every couple of years to see what’s new.”

It’s important to get the proper training with a master sharpener if one aspires to learn the trade.

“You have to have good eyesight and care about the scissors,” he said. “You also have to understand that you can’t make every pair of scissors cut right [because of previous damage].”

Oldershaw’s goal is to become a master sharpener. That means traveling to Las Vegas to take the test conducted by the National Shear Sharpeners Guild.

Those taking the test are given two extremely damaged scissors which they must restore to working order and appearance – and a limited amount of time in which to do so. The scissors are nicked, bent, scratched and have broken parts. Three judges critique 20 aspects of the sharpening, including that no excessive metal was removed, that the scissors are smooth and feel balanced, that the blade is highly polished with no excessive blemishes and that the cutting action is smooth.

“Only 12 or 15 people per year get to take the master sharpener test,” Oldershaw said.

The guild “sets the standard, educates and qualifies sharpeners to be knowledgeable and skilled in their profession,” according to information at its Web site, www.nssg.biz.

Oldershaw said the most rewarding thing about his work is “doing it correctly, fixing them to cut right. I like the positive reactions from the people I sharpen scissors for. My way of being a salesman is to make people happy.”

Until recently, Oldershaw had a mobile sharpening service in a van he drove directly to the customer’s place of business. He said he is in the process of getting the van repaired so he can hit the road again.

Besides sharpening tools for animal groomers, Oldershaw puts the cutting edge on tools for beauticians, barbers and veterinarians. He also sharpens straight-edged kitchen knives and is learning to sharpen chain saw blades.

For information, contact Oldershaw at 884-6885 or yankeeclippersharpening@yahoo.com.