Tool Talk
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: skipskip on February 20, 2012, 08:25:43 PM
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Auction Sunday coughed up a pair of Bartlett snips.
14 inches overall
First time I have seen compound old style tin snips.
I assume they are pretty common and I have just never stumbled upon any before?
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First I've ever seen. I couldn't call them common.
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I have a pair of them in the shop, and in 20plus years of swap meets and such, only seen one more pair. Bet they were pricey when new.
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I have seen a very large pair designed to clamp in a vise, I have never seen hand held ones like that. The replacement bolts may give a clue as to why they don't turn up often....
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Mine look just the same, and I never saw another pair until now either.
Cool!
I takes a special gang of nuts to go after, and appreciate, old tin snips. heehehhee
Got to love that.
yours Scott
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> I takes a special gang of nuts to go after, and appreciate, old tin snips...
Well, I hadn't intended to start a collection of tin snips, but the dang things are tricky to sharpen....
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I have a pair and they are also made by Bartlett. He got a patent in 1909.
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I have a pair of Bartlett compound snips too.
Mine are 10" overall.
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the dang things are tricky to sharpen....
Not even! Tin snips are dead simple to sharpen.
Just never touch the blades where they rub together. I call this the --insides-- of the blades.
The outsides? Where the bevel is? This is where you sharpen.
Try a fine tooth file, but they will probably be too hard. So grind instead.
Grind, following the original bevel, until you have a fat burr you can feel on the inside.
Close the snips once and it will take off the burr.
They will now cut like mad, but the edge won't last too long.
So take a coarse sharpening stone and go over them until you have a burr back.
Then a medium and last a fine stone.
Close the snips one least time and try them now.
Like buttah!
Sharpening is easy. Setting them for the correct drag that will cut in all conditions, but not be too hard to operate? This is harder.
But a bit of practice will work this out too.
Oh, one pair of quality snips trumps 7 pair of cheapies.
Even in the old days not all tools were first rate.
yours Scott
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>Just never touch the blades where they rub together
Therein lies the reason I have several non functional display pieces, when you buy them used at the flea, you get stuck with what the last guy did...
Apparently quite a lot of people think they are knives are sharpen both sides :(
It is possible to reface the inside, but it's not easy.....
>Then a medium and last a fine stone.
I bought a odd lot box years ago that turned out to have a nice set of arkansas stones in it, they are now my favorite sharpening tools : )
The finest one looks like a piece of marble, and will put on a mirror shine...
Takes some elbow grease tho, took me while to figure out I just wasn't using them long enough sometimes..
> Oh, one pair of quality snips trumps 7 pair of cheapies.
Yeah, the cheapies won't hold the torque setting on the screw, then they start to eat things, which wipes out the edge.....
I like the small and large crescent snips, but the big pexto seems to cut better for hard stuff....
The small crescent seems to like really thin stuff better, I can set the screw really tight and it's ok with it, the big ones don't like that tho, I loose the edge on them...
The flip side is I cut a lot of alumnium with them, alumnium is kinda evil as it's coated with alumnium oxide, and it tends to dull things very fast....