Why Ernest Wright Scissors Are So Expensive | So Expensive

[Music] these handmade scissors have been produced in Sheffield England for over a hundred years but compared to a $2.00 mass-produced pair the kitchen scissors will cost you over $100 and a pair of professional tailors shares cost three hundred and fifteen dollars so just what is it that makes them so expensive [Music] cliff Denton is one of just two master put her togethers left both in their 70s the Masters are the only one skilled enough to undertake the final delicate part of the process the Assembly of these scissors or putting together when our young every street corner add a little sharp rim esters in and working they've gone you know at one stage we were doing like 85 90 different types of scissor in the 1970s there were a hundred and fifty small-scale scissor workshops in Sheffield now there are just two and keeping this craft alive relies on training the next generation of apprentices you know where you've got you just just got that like magic ChaCha that's older that's a stroke of utter a gym and this to instill and young lads it's hard because it's not submit you can write down and learn read they've got to actually do it unlike cheaper mass-manufactured scissors almost all of the work is done by hand the starting outline of the scissor is hot drop forged off site this is called a blank and while it may already have the shape of a very rough pair of scissors the process has only just begun the blanks first need to be drilled counterbored and tapped this puts a hole in the center of each half and adds a thread to that hole once that work is done the blades have to be ground down the blank has no blade on it whatsoever so initial grinding has to be done on a fifty-year-old fiato machine before further refinements are done by hand so if you were to look at a cheap pair of scissors you'd quickly notice that it's actually a stamped out piece of metal that have just been bolted together and a blades edge put on them so when we grind the inside of the blade well we'll say there are three angles to it you've got to have a curve from the pinch of the scissor to the point which means that when the blades are together you should be able to see a gap through the middle we'll also want to grind in a twist and then finally we want to hollow the blade as well and what that'll give us is a scissor that will only ever touch at the cutting edge once the blade is on the rough edges need to be sanded off from the bow the shanks and the nail holes after everything's sanded down the scissors are sent off to be hardened turning the soft workable metal into a hard final product then they're put into the rumbler for a few hours to be acid treated before being dried rumbling takes off any grind marks on the surface of the metal and prepares them for polishing we do different types of scissors if it was our embroidery stock then we could work on maybe 500 embroidery stalks over two weeks to a month however if we were doing same size batch 513 inch scissors then we probably wouldn't even see that within a year the blades are polished by hand to a mirror finish then comes the hardest part putting together traditionally you would undertake a five year apprenticeship before you could even sit at the puntas table I never had a background like this before I went straight into an office right out of university and I was walking down this street and I saw a chalkboard that said scissor makers wanted and I thought I've always wanted to work with my hands but I've had no training and working with my hands my training began eight months ago and it doesn't look like it's gonna stop for at least another few years and despite the intricacy the most important tool isn't anything small and delicate but a hammer and I want to get its app the hammer is crucial to aligning the blades correctly oh that's better the two scissor parts are screwed into place and then a perfect curve is hammered onto each blade this part of the process is the hardest to get right and also the hardest skill to pass on if he hits that with the wrong tension or the the wrong angle or in the wrong spot he will ruin those scissors so I've put a scissor blade down and I've I've taken to swing it to it and I have just snapped the blade in half once the two halves are married together a final blade will be put on the scissor Malhar started in 1959 roughly the same stilly amis other than we had lice and get over to get more live you'll learn you will never forget it's sopia in a dialer some girls have it in the safe scissor and it just comes up on a projection he may had manicure dissected thread clip different scissors Sheffield has been home to England's blade making industry since his far back as the 14th century it's where stainless steel was originally invented and it's a city that's famed for its cutlery production cliff started making scissors when he was just 15 when I pick a pair of scissors Oh tells me a story I cannot really shut it tight it's like you can Victor just should be way to your finger I'd just jump that's where you left it week after week year after year if need be that's it [Music] [Music] in fact I used to have a barber to my ear and it was the ring this is and this is what I did out of your air free if you're the Masters Sheriff she's read some for years

Channel: Business Insider

Views: 5,304,593

Rating: 4.9139218 out of 5

Keywords: England, factory, Business Insider, UK Original Video, Ernest Wright, handmade, Business News, History, Scissors

Id: bK4AWtTV3h4

Length: 6min 57sec (417 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 04 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/sidfinch1588]

My kids would still use them to cut open the wire twist ties and ruin them.

[u/Gcons24]

I wasn't expecting to sit through that whole thing but now I know more about scissors

[u/mud_tug]

Seems like every country in the world has one city for cutlery production.

Sheffield, Solingen, Thiers, Damascus, Seki, Bursa...

[u/JDeakin]

I lived in the building behind Ernest Wright when I was at uni. It’s a small little place, and you wouldn’t think how much mastery is behind the door.

I finally got some the summer I left Sheffield and they are awesome

[u/arrezzo]

Can't be many little mesters left. I grew up in Attercliffe and went to bed hearing the steel hammers at night. All gone now sadly.

[u/nocjef]

$100is a lot for kitchen scissors? Weird. People pay 10x that for fancy chef’s knives and don’t blink an eye.

Their Turton kitchen shears are probably the best I’ve ever used, don’t appear to dull easily, AND can be broken down for sharpening, all for about $100. I use these things for everything from clipping herbs, to cutting cardboard, and even used them to cut aluminum and they’re still as good as when I first got them.

Make no mistake, these are high quality AND inexpensive.

[u/Crackfigure]

I’ve had mine for over 5 years and never sharpened them. Worth the price.

[u/TikMethod]

Somewhat unrelated, but what a lovely accent. Between that and the satisfying sound of the snip noise as they test the scissors this was an unexpected bonus.

[u/gardvar]

so this lead me down a new rabbit hole