I finally got the footage from the commercial I made in LA last year, and wrote about here. I think it looks great, and even though the details are wrong, the total impression is very appealing and accurate.
A Nice Scissors Move
A hairdresser showed me this move. She said she had also spoken to a surgeon who uses a similar technique. It allows you to safely keep the points of the scissors away from whatever else you are doing, without taking them completely off your hand and putting them down. A couple of years ago I wrote about Palmer’s proper method for using scissors, which deals with how to hold the paper to make a straight cut.
For this, you will need to have a scissors with single finger metal bows. The bows are the “handles” of the scissors, the enclosed round part that you put your fingers in. (1) This might be a good excuse to ditch those plastic handled Fiskars and buy some real scissors, such a pair of drop-forged chrome-plated ones made by Mundial, which are an excellent value.
Basically the scissors are spun 180 degrees on the middle finger.
When you are done cutting with the scissors, take your thumb out of the bow.
Twirl the scissors, using your index finger, so that the point is facing towards you.
Then your fingers are free to grasp another tool or manipulate an object without fear of stabbing it. Don’t stab yourself, though.
When you are done and need to use the scissors again, twirl them back into position by using your ring finger, then reinserting your thumb.
Usually we use one hand per tool and occasionally two hands per tool. But using two tools in one hand requires dexterity and practice, like handling chopsticks or holding an awl and threaded needle at the same time for heavy leather stitching. Generally we keep the cutting edge of tools pointed away from us, although David Esterly mentions wood carvers are trained to spin their chisels around and place them down on the bench handle first, so as not to damage the edge.(2)
I imagine this move come in handy in a number of circumstances. Cutting strapping and double stick tape when mounting books for exhibition currently comes to mind. Others?
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(1) J. B. Himsworth The Story of Cutlery: From Flint to Stainless Steel. London: Ernest Benn Limited, 1953. Chapter 10 deals with scissors, the whole book is great. Filled with interesting historical tidbits, like early nineteenth century Sheffield knife grinders, who often died of silicosis, sometimes had their grinding stones used as their gravestone.
(2) David Esterly, The Lost Carving: A Journey to the Heart of Making New York: Viking, 2012.
Leonard Bailey’s Copy Press
It is a surprise when a well know name from one area of toolmaking suddenly appears in a different context. Leonard Bailey is best known for his many improvements to woodworking hand planes; in fact the modern metal plane made by virtually all companies is due to Bailey. Eventually he sold his business to Stanley, who often gets credit for his work. Patrick Leach’s Blood and Gore is a great site for Stanley info, BTW. Bailey was also the inventor of several copy presses and by 1903 had nineteen patents related to typing, copying, and pressing.
It is indicative of the popularity and demand for copy presses at the time, that someone like Bailey would devote sustained attention to them over at least a twenty year peroid. But was this really, as the advertising below proclaims, “the only perfect copy press”? It is certainly “elegant and ornamental”, with enough pin striping to pimp out any Victorian office.
New Britain Directory, 1882-3. Price, Lee & Co. (The Winterthur Library F104 N53a 1882), 280.
The top part of the press is an adjustable wringer which was used to partially dry the blotting pad before making a copy in a book. The drawer at the base stored the blotting pad. The double action Acme screw (coarse and fine) allows the press to rapidly rise and fall and provide lots of pressure. There are several actual photos of this machine in Rhodes and Streeter’s Before Photocopying, 229-231. Unlike most copy presses, this one can generate sufficient pressure to use as a nipping press. Almost perfection for a bookbinder, if you can live with the minuscule amount of daylight.
Peachey Conservation 