Scissors
Scissors are used for cutting various thin materials, such as paper, cardboard, metal foil, cloth, rope, and wire.
Inexpensive, mass-produced modern scissors are often designed ergonomically with composite thermoplastic and rubber handles.
[6] They entered common use in not only ancient Rome, but also China, Japan, and Korea, and the idea is still used in almost all modern scissors.
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.
[7] William Whiteley & Sons (Sheffield) Ltd. was producing scissors by 1760, although it is believed the business began trading even earlier.
His major challenge was to form the bows; first, he made them solid, then drilled a hole, and then filed away metal to make this large enough to admit the user's fingers.
Hinchliffe lived in Cheney Square (now the site of Sheffield Town Hall), and set up a sign identifying himself as a "fine scissor manufacturer".
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.
The Hangzhou Zhang Xiaoquan Company, founded in 1663, is one of the oldest continuously operating scissor manufacturers in the world.
The company was nationalized in 1958 and now employs 1500 people who annually mass-produce an estimated seven million pairs of inexpensive scissors that retail for an average of US$4 each.
[11] There are several historically important scissor-producing regions in France: Haute-Marne in Nogent-en Bassigny, Châtellereault, Thiers and Rouen.
[12] These towns, like many other scissor-producing communities, began with sabre, sword and bayonet production, which transitioned to scissors and other blades in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
[13] Thiers, in the Puy-de-Dôme department of Auvergne, remains an important centre of scissor and cutlery production.
[15] Often called "The City of Blades", Solingen, in North Rhine-Westphalia, has been a center for the manufacturing of scissors since medieval times.
[19] Today, Consorzio Premax, an industrial partnership, organizes over 60 local companies involved in the manufacture of scissors for global markets.
After citizens were no longer permitted to carry swords, the city's blacksmiths turned to making scissors and knives.
[25] The Sasuke workshop in Sakai City south of Osaka is run by Yasuhiro Hirakawa, a 5th generation scissorsmith.
However, since the 1980s, industry globalization and a shift towards cheaper, mass-produced scissors created price deflation that many artisanal manufacturers could not compete with.
[31] The two remaining Sheffield scissor manufacturers are William Whiteley, founded in 1760,[32] and Ernest Wright, which was established in 1902.
[33] Between these two firms it is estimated that there are no more than ten "putter-togetherers" or "putters" who are the master-trained craftspeople responsible for high quality Sheffield scissor assembly.
An ideal example is in high-quality tailor's scissors or shears, which need to be able to perfectly cut (and not simply tear apart) delicate cloths such as chiffon and silk.
Heinrich Hoffmann's 1845 children's book Struwwelpeter includes Die Geschichte vom Daumenlutscher ("The Story of the Thumb-Sucker") in which a child continues to suck his thumbs despite his mother's warnings about The Great Tall Scissorman.
Augusten Burroughs' 2002 memoir Running with Scissors spent eight weeks on the New York Times best seller list.
The term 'scissor kick' may be found in several sports, including: Scissors have a widespread place in cultural superstitions.
