I have had a set of hair clippers for years but hardly ever used them. In the current lockdown I dug them out but they struggle to cut any hair at all despite the blades seemingly working ok. After a bit of searching I found some videos saying you sharpen them by rubbing the flat surface on a sharpening stone. Unfortunately this didn't seem to do the trick either. Given the blades seem to vibrate horizontally, I would have thought that to sharpen them you would have to make the sides of the "fingers" of the blades sharp rather than the front edge.
Anyone have any experience of doing this or an idea about what else I could try?
No, you only need to "flatten" the large face, although in practice it isn't as easy to "DIY" as you might think. You may find the modern diamond-impregnated laps better than traditional abrasive stones.
A tenner from Toolstation, or this one from Screwfix
They are sharpened by dissembling and grinding the two flat faces flat. It fails to cut because of wear on the teeth. It can be done on a sheet of glass with an abrasive paste. It's a lot of work a lot of metal has to come off.
I looked at mine as I hasn't attended to them in years and felt maybe I should. A quick check of the spec confirmed my suspicion that the blades were ceramic and so didn't need any lube or sharpening. ;-)
If yours are plain steel, then as others have mentioned you sharpen them as you might shears or scissors (although you can go further with them) by insuring the faces that touch each other do so right to the edge of the blade so that they shear the hair rather than trapping it between the two blades.
Mine only fail to cut when clogged with very fine hair. Are sure that its bluntness that's causing the problem rather than, say, old lubrication that has become thick and sticky.
Thanks all. So are the front edges of the 2 steel plates supposed to be sharp? Mine are definitely blunt if that is the case. @Tim - not sure what you mean by touching right to the edge. Mine has a little handle on the side which seems to move one of the blades back and forth so it can be adjusted so they are offset or align at the front. Is this what you mean? I have no idea what the impact to the cut is when the lever is moved though.
If you think of each blade point as one part of a pair of (double sided) scissors, they work by shearing the hair between the two parts.
When they blunt, what you typically get is the very edge where both parts (should) meet wearing rounded so that you lose the shearing effect and are now more like trying to snap the hair off.
It's the same thing you see and can feel / control if you are using scissors with the pivot is a bit slack, allowing the blades to move away from each other and so the object being cut to go between, rather than being sheered by the blades.
You can often bias such scissors so that the blades are in contact (if a loose joint) as long as the blades themselves are still flat (and so present the two edges together sharply).
You sometimes find good scissors are actually slightly hollow (undercut) behind the cutting edges to ensure that the leading edges are the only bits that are in contact with each other.
To demonstrate the effect, stick some Selotape to the inside face of one blade of a pair of worn scissors and try to cut anything thin.
So, that's why you need to ensure the backs of both parts of the blade are ground flat, as that is the only way you can create the shearing effect between the two parts. If the mating faces of the blades are dead flat, you might be able to work them on some fine wet-n-dry, oiled and laid on some plate glass or similar (something very stiff and flat). As you return the back to flat (by removing metal), you will also effectively sharpen the 'blades', but without actually touching the blades themselves individually.
Same with a guillotine (steel or necks), they rely on one blade working very closely with another, or they just become an axe. ;-)
The fixed and moving blade points must make contact to give the shearing effect. So to sharpen them, you have to reduce the whole plate until they you. It's a lot of metal to take off.
They do not cut at the front, they only cut once hair gets between the teeth. The very front the leading edge of the blades are supposed to be blunt otherwise they would cut your skin.
The flat faces, where the teeth are, are the only bits which might need sharpening and only after a lot of use. To some extent they will self sharpen in use, but to sharpen they need to be rubbed on a fine flat abrasive surface.
My best guess on what the lever on the side is for, is to leave the hair cut longer or less close, when the blade is moved further back with the lever.
And the feel for that is only something you get when you have done it successfully at least once.
With (say) fine wet and dry on a very flat surface (a bit of glass or stone worktop, often flatter than a used sharpening stone ...) with a drop of light oil on it and the job held down with even pressure and moved in a variety of movements, you can soon start to see the high spots being flattened. Then, often after quite some time ... you will see the effect across the whole of the surface, then it's a matter of if you still have to go further or if that was enough to do the trick (because it might have not been done well in the first place if they were cheap).
I have often (casually) sharpened people scissors / garden shears with the diamond stone on my Leatherman and that generally starts by dressing / flattening the mating faces to remove any, lumps, nicks or burrs and I might sweep the other faces a couple of times just to brighten them up. If I want to do a better job and can get the pivot screw out, I'll do the whole of both inner faces, as stuff between the blades at the pivot area can also hold the blades apart.
Yup. I cut my hair with a No. 3 with the lever right back then do a taper for about an inch in mid position then a smaller taper with right forward. M Babyliss, about 12 years old, doesn't say which way does what - I tried on my arm, as testing is destructive! Get it wrong and you can't put the hair back. Mine hasn't gone blunt at all and there was no oil supplied and no mention of oil in the booklet. For others that do need oil I use Johnsons Baby Oil (first pressing from the babies). In Boots the 'proper' oil was expensive and the assistant said that baby oil would be as good and it seems to be, compared with the oil that came with a rotary cutter.
I have searched the internet for instructions and not found any - probably too old, but other user instructions suggest the need to oil with the correct Babyliss oil. I have just given them a thorough clean and service, oiling them with thin machine oil. We have some baby oil around though, so I will clean the oil off and use the baby oil.
They just use a solenoid, with an hinged armature (right word?) which is balanced between two strong springs, one fixed, one with adjustable pressure. Backing the pressure off, I found a position which minimised the noise, so all good for next time. We both like our hair short, which makes it easy, so likely we may not need the services of a professional hair dresser ever again.
She has gone off to work this morning, without a head covering, so she is not too ashamed of the result of my handywork :-)
I had the same problem. I noticed there was no force pressing the 2 blades together, so opened the thing up & adjusted the screws so they pressed together and maximised the vibration. Add a drop of oil between the blades and it all worked. Oh and removed the rubber damping pad that no longer worked - just means they're noisier under no load.
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