At our recent Bonika Tune-up Clinic, Carl Clay, a sharpener from Alabama brought a barbering shear with a severe loose screw problem. This gave us all a chance to share and find out how to best address a loose screw problem. Step One - Replacement: Ideally the screw should be replaced. This can be done by selecting through your personal assortment of replacement screws that you have purchased from your scissor repair supply source. If none of those fit, you can call the manufacturer and see if they will send out a replacement screw. Step Two - Split Screw “Make-Do”: If you can not replace the screw there are some creative scenarios. If it is a split screw, the split can be widened gently. There are various ways to do this. I have a tiny pharmacist spatula that will fit in the slit of most of these screws to widen it. . I usually insert a piece of a rubber band into the slit after I have opened it in hopes that it will exert some pressure to keep the slit open in your split screw. In general a razor blade is too thin and a screwdriver is too fat to open the slit. A screwdriver wedge can break the screw in half very easily, as I have learned the hard way. I was sharpening in a salon on a cruise ship once and broke a screw. Since I couldn’t run home and get another screw, I thought I was in trouble. Fortunately, the stylist saw this as a great excuse to purchase a new pair of shears which I happily helped her to do. Some sharpeners have filed down screwdriver they use fit the slit and have created a small concave platform to hold the head of the screw in position. Step Three - Regular Screw “Make-do”: We used neither of these methods to fix Carl’s shear. His screw did not have a split so there was no way to open it, nor did we have a replacement screw the right size. Harry Megowan, a sharpener from Florida dipped a length of dental floss in the BLUE Loc-Tite. (The blue holds tight but is not permanent.) After threading the floss through the pivot holes of both sides of the shear, he returned the screw to the hole and adjusted the shear to the exact tightest. It is important to get this adjustment right on the money, because neither you nor the barber should move this screw unless you are ready to lose all the hold created by the Loc-tite. The excess dental floss that protruded from the hole was trimmed off and the shear was set aside in an open position to let the loc-tite set. After about an hour we tested the shear and the screw held securely. This “fix” will have to be repeated each time the shear is taken apart for sharpening so it may be best to sharpen shears like this with the blades together if possible. Loc-tite is sold at auto supply and hardware stores. It is also found in a gluestick form now which is less messy. Bonika Shears and most scissor manufacturers and distributors carry a supply of screws for their shears. Screws don’t have to be replaced as often as you may think, but it is good to have some on hand. Step Three - Adjustable Screw “Make Do”: On thumb adjustable screws, sometimes the spring plate can be slightly bent to create an increase curvature of the spring. Use your fingers or two pliers to create this curvature. This will either create a tighter adjustment for the screw or break the spring plate then you are back to step one. Just a word here about creativity. Over the years in desperate circumstances I have gone to extreme lengths to create something that would make a screw hold in place after exhausting all other possibilities. So if you come across a shear with something particularly weird and the stylist says “Bonnie repaired it last.” Just know that desperate times often require desperate measures. Bonnie Megowan of Bonika Shears. First published in ON THE EDGE January 2008 |
Bonika Guarantee 30 Day no questions asked satisfaction guarantee on Bonika Shears! Life Time Warranty on Bonika Shears for Manufacturers Defects. Warranty Come by and test drive our Bonika Shears line and bring your sharpening to our next hair show Put on Your Dancing Shears. Bonika has world-wide distribution as well as recommended sharpeners, some of which are authorized warranty centers as well.
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