Is scissors-making a trade, a craft or an art?

Nowadays, we think of scissors-making as a craft. The term is the best fit for our traditional processes and hand-crafted products, and it reflects our position as a small-scale producer.

It wasn’t always this way. Historically, Sheffield scissors-making was widely known as a trade. We still hear retired members of the previous generation refer to it as such.

Back in the day, there were many participants in the Sheffield scissors trade. These included dozens of scissors-making companies, specialist hardeners and die-makers, and sole traders known as ‘little mesters’ who provided outsourced services. Ernest Wright Sr. himself was the son of a little mester who specialised in scissors-boring.

By the latter decades of the 20th century, some of the other surviving firms in the scissors trade had begun to use automated processes such as CNC (computer assisted cutting) to make their scissors, and these certainly could not have been considered as craft businesses.

But now that only a handful of companies are making scissors in the UK, it would be misleading to identify our activities as a trade. Most trades have some degree of collective identity, organisation through governing bodies and specific regulations. There is no such ecosystem for scissors-making on a local, national or global level.

If we belong to any trade, it might be more accurate to say Ernest Wright is part of:

• The Sheffield cutlery trade. Scissors are traditionally classed as cutlery (because they cut), and we are members of the Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire along with a reasonable number of other firms making cutlery (mostly tablewares) in Sheffield.
• The British craft trade. Really, British craft is too diverse to be considered a trade, which is perhaps why the term ‘craft trade’ is not in use. However, we share much in common with some of our fellow craft businesses (especially those who are members of Heritage Crafts), including a focus on hand skills and traditional processes. Collectively, these craftspeople function somewhat like a trade.

We appreciate that some of our supporters have described scissors-making as an art. It’s true that there’s artistry in many aspects of the putters’ work, from grinding the scissors-blades to precisely marrying them together.

However, we prefer the term ‘craft’ because it emphasises that we’re making functional items. Of course, many people use the scissors and shears we’ve crafted to make art of their own.

At Ernest Wright, we have never relied on our own words alone to build trust.

Instead, we choose to stand alongside a small number of independent organisations whose values reflect our own. Each represents something we believe is worth protecting: genuine provenance, British manufacturing, endangered craftsmanship and exceptional making.

Together, they help tell the story of what Ernest Wright stands for beyond the workshop.

Made in Sheffield

Sheffield earned its reputation over centuries as one of the world’s great centres of cutlery and edge-tool manufacture. The Made in Sheffield certification protects that heritage by recognising products that genuinely meet its geographical and manufacturing requirements.

For us, it confirms that our scissors continue to be made in the city where our trade was born.

View our official Made in Sheffield profile.

Made in Britain

Knowing where a product is truly made has become increasingly important.

Made in Britain provides independent verification that our scissors are manufactured in Great Britain in accordance with its licensing standards. It gives customers confidence that our products are genuinely made here.

View our Made in Britain member profile.

Heritage Crafts

Handmade scissor making is listed on the Heritage Crafts Red List of Endangered Crafts.

Our connection with Heritage Crafts reflects a commitment not only to making scissors and shears today, but also to passing on the knowledge that makes them possible through training and apprenticeship.

View our Heritage Crafts profile.

Homo Faber

The Homo Faber Guide, created by the Michelangelo Foundation, celebrates exceptional craftsmanship from around the world. It brings together workshops and artisans whose work represents the highest levels of skill and dedication. Inclusion reflects a commitment to preserving traditional craftsmanship and keeping rare skills alive.

View our Homo Faber Guide profile.

Four Organisations. One Purpose.

Each organisation recognises something different.

• ‘Made in Sheffield’ protects provenance.
• ‘Made in Britain’ verifies British manufacturing.
• ‘Heritage Crafts’ safeguards endangered skills.
• ‘Homo Faber’ celebrates exceptional craftsmanship.

Together, they reflect the standards that guide our work every day.

Understanding the correct usage

The English language is replete with words that challenge even native speakers. One common point of confusion arises with the tools we use to cut fabric, paper, and more. Should we say ‘scissor’ or ‘scissors’? This article aims to clarify the proper usage and help readers understand the nuances behind these terms.

At its core, the difference between ‘scissor’ and ‘scissors’ lies in the concept of singular and plural nouns. In English, plural nouns refer to more than one of something, while singular nouns refer to just one. However, the word ‘scissors’ is what’s known as a pluralia tantum, which means it is used in its plural form to refer to a single item (e.g. trousers, glasses).

When to use ‘scissors’

‘Scissors’ refers to the cutting instrument we are all familiar with. This term is always used in the plural form, even when referring to one pair. This usage is because ‘scissors’ are seen as comprising two symmetrical parts that work together, similar to other tools like pliers and tongs. However, don’t be mistaken: the two symmetrical parts are not each individually referred to as a ‘scissor’, but rather, a blade.

Is ‘scissor’ ever correct?

While ‘scissors’ is the correct term for the cutting tool, ‘scissor’ can be correct in different contexts, particularly as a verb. When used as a verb, ‘to scissor’ means to cut with scissors or to move in a way resembling the action of scissors. ‘Scissor’ also appears in compound nouns, where it describes objects related to or functioning like scissors, but here it is typically used in the singular form.

Examples include:

• ‘Scissor lift’ (a platform that moves vertically)
• ‘Scissor kick’ (a swimming or martial arts move)

In these cases, ‘scissor’ acts as an adjective to modify another noun, and its singular form is grammatically correct.

People often ask what makes a true left-handed scissor different.

It sounds a simple question, though it usually begins with a frustration. A left-handed person who has always found scissors awkward. Fabric folding instead of cutting. Paper slipping between the blades. A line that seems impossible to follow cleanly.

Often they assume the scissors are blunt.

Usually, it is something else.

Much of the confusion comes from the fact that many scissors described as left-handed are not truly so. Some have bows shaped for the left hand, which can make them more comfortable to hold, but the blades remain arranged as they would be in a right-handed pair.

A true left-handed scissor is another matter altogether.

It is a mirror image.

That may sound a small thing, but it changes everything. Scissors cut not only through the closing motion of the hand, but through a slight sideways pressure we hardly notice we are applying. In a right-handed scissor, that pressure helps force the blades together. Put the same tool in the left hand and it can work against itself, encouraging the blades apart rather than together.

That is often why a cut feels reluctant.

A true left-handed pair restores that natural action.

It also does something simple but important, it lets the user see what they are cutting. Once noticed, that alone can feel revelatory.

And yet, oddly enough, not every left-handed person prefers one.

Many have spent years adapting to right-handed scissors and have developed their own way with them. Hands, like tools, learn habits. Sometimes deeply.

So there is no absolute rule.

Some people pick up a true left-handed pair and feel at once what they have been missing.

Others return quite happily to the familiar.

That seems part of the fascination of tools: they are always, in the end, personal.

People are often surprised too by how uncommon true left-handed scissors are, or why certain patterns do not exist in left-handed form.

The assumption is sometimes that one simply reverses an existing pattern.

If only it were so.

A proper left-handed version asks for its own dies, made specifically for that pattern. For a small workshop, that is a serious undertaking before a single pair is produced.

Then there is the quieter reality afterwards.

A batch of left-handed scissors may take years to find its owners.

Years, where the right-handed equivalent may have long since gone out into the world.

That has always been the challenge.

Not making them. Sustaining them.

Which is also why left-handed scissors often carry a higher price elsewhere. The economics make sense: rarity, slow return, dies made specifically for a pattern few will ever use.

We charge the same either way.

If a tool is made properly for a left hand, why should that hand pay more for correctness?

It has always seemed an odd notion.

Perhaps that is why we have kept certain left-handed patterns in the workshop even when logic might have argued otherwise.

Some tools deserve to remain.

Not because they are niche.

Because they are proper.

And perhaps that is the heart of it.

A true left-handed scissor is not a curiosity or a special variant.

It is simply a tool made as thoughtfully for one hand as another.

As it should be.

• Turton Left-Handed Kitchen Scissors
• 8.25″ Left-Handed Sidebent Dressmaker Shears
• 10″ Left-Handed Sidebent Tailor Shears

There is an interesting superstition about cutlery which seems of rather ancient origin. It is said that the gift of a sharp-edged tool will sever friendship. Perhaps it arose in the folkore of peasants who were uneducated in the use of sharp implements and had reason to think of them as inherently dangerous or malevolent. For example, in the courts of law it was the practice to underline a verdict of guilty by the turning of the edges of the guards’ halberds toward the prisoner upon his condemnation.

This ancient superstition has almost disappeared, although in some lands the recipient of the gift of a pair of scissors or a knife will present a penny to the giver, traditionally a sure way of warding off the curse. However a Danish jingle tells us specifically:

Needles and knives will love drive away, But spoons and scissors will love amplify.

We are sometimes asked whether our scissors and shears are made from ‘Sheffield steel’.

It is an understandable question. Sheffield has been associated with steel, tools and cutlery for centuries. The name became known around the world and, over time, ‘Sheffield steel’ began to sound like a particular material with its origins in the city.

The history is more interesting than that.

Sheffield did not become famous because it possessed a unique iron mine. The city’s reputation was built on its ability to select good material, improve it and turn it into proper tools.

Iron from Sweden

From the seventeenth century onwards, some of the most highly valued iron used by Sheffield’s steelmakers came from Sweden.

Ore from the Dannemora mine in Uppland was particularly suitable for producing high-quality iron. It contained relatively little phosphorus and sulphur, impurities that could make steel difficult to work with or more brittle.

The ore was processed at a number of Swedish ironworks and shipped through the port of Öregrund. In Britain, the resulting bar iron became known as Oregrounds iron.

Its quality was recognised by Sheffield’s steelmakers and merchants. A small group of traders became closely involved in securing its supply, contracting the output of individual Swedish ironworks to ensure that the finest raw material reached Sheffield.

The raw material did not come from Sheffield.

But Sheffield’s craftsmen knew what to look for, and what to do with it.

Crucible steel

In the eighteenth century, Benjamin Huntsman developed his crucible steel process near Sheffield.

Existing blister steel was broken into pieces, placed in clay crucibles and heated until it melted. Once liquid, the steel became more uniform in its composition than the material available before it.

This consistency proved particularly valuable for tools, springs, blades and cutlery. Sheffield became the centre of crucible steel production, and its makers gained access to steel that could be worked with greater accuracy and confidence.

The city had not discovered a new source of iron.

It had developed a better way of transforming it.

Water, stone and skill

Steelmaking was only one part of Sheffield’s success.

The five rivers that flow through the city provided water power for hammers, machinery and grinding wheels. The surrounding area supplied coal and the sandstone used to make grindstones.

Alongside these natural advantages grew a remarkable network of specialist trades.

Steelmakers, forgers, grinders, hardeners, polishers, cutlers and toolmakers often worked within a few streets of one another. In districts such as Hollis Croft, workshops formed an industrial community where knowledge, materials and skills moved constantly between specialists.

Many of these independent craftsmen became known as the Little Mesters. A craftsman might spend an entire working life mastering a single stage of production.

Scissor making developed within this world. Forging the blades was one skill. Grinding and polishing were others. The final marriage of the blades required the specialist knowledge of a putter, also known as a putter-togetherer.

Steel alone could never make a good pair of scissors.

Stainless steel

Sheffield continued to develop new steels and new ways of working with them.

In 1913, Harry Brearley developed what was then described as rustless steel while working in Sheffield. The material contained enough chromium to resist corrosion and would later become known around the world as stainless steel.

Its development changed the production of cutlery, medical instruments, tools and countless other objects.

Once again, Sheffield’s importance came not from a local source of raw material, but from metallurgical knowledge and experimentation.

Sheffield steel today

Steel is still made in Sheffield and the surrounding area, particularly for specialist engineering and demanding industrial applications.

The supply chain for smaller consumer goods has changed. The specialist rolling mills that once supplied much of Sheffield’s cutlery trade are no longer part of the supply chain for products such as scissors and cutlery.

Today, the steel for our scissors and shears is sourced from specialist European steel producers.

The mill is important. We look for high-quality steel of the correct grade and consistency, supplied with full material certification.

That steel then comes to Sheffield.

Here, specialist craftsmen continue the work that has defined the city for generations. Depending on the product, the steel may be forged, heat treated, ground, polished, assembled and finally put together by hand. No single workshop has ever represented Sheffield. Its reputation has always rested on a community of specialist trades, each contributing their own knowledge to the finished tool.

‘Sheffield steel’ has never been the name of one mine, one mill or one fixed recipe.

It describes a long relationship between material, innovation and craftsmanship.

That is also why ‘Made in Sheffield’ does not simply describe where the steel began its journey.

It describes where it became a tool.

Carbon or Stainless Steel?

There is no single answer.

Different scissors ask for different things from the steel they are made from. Some need toughness for heavy workshop use. Some benefit from greater corrosion resistance in a kitchen. Some take a finer edge. Others are easier to sharpen and maintain over decades of use.

At Ernest Wright, we use a small number of carbon and stainless steels depending on the pattern and purpose of the tool. Some have been familiar to Sheffield makers for generations.

Our steels arrive with EN 10204 3.1 mill certificates traceable to the original melt.

Carbon Steel

Traditional carbon steel scissors are still valued for the way they sharpen and cut.

Carbon steels take an exceptionally fine edge and are pleasant to maintain by hand. They develop a natural patina with age and use and require basic care to prevent oxidation.

We use two principal carbon steels.

C50

Also known as EN8 or 1.1210, C50 is a medium carbon steel containing around 0.5% carbon.

Typically hardened to around 54–56 HRC, it offers a balance between toughness and edge retention, making it well suited to hardworking scissors and shears that need to remain dependable over many years of use.

C60

C60, sometimes specified as C60E, is a higher carbon steel containing around 0.6% carbon.

Typically hardened to around 58–60 HRC, it can take a finer and longer-lasting edge than C50. Steels like this have long been associated with traditional Sheffield shears and heavier cutting tools.

Stainless Steel

Stainless steels resist corrosion far better than traditional carbon steels, making them particularly useful for kitchen and general-purpose scissors.

Stainless steel itself was developed in Sheffield in the early twentieth century, originally in response to the search for more corrosion-resistant cutlery steels.

We use two principal stainless grades.

420B

420B is a martensitic stainless steel with moderate carbon content and good corrosion resistance.

Usually hardened to around 54–56 HRC, it is tough, practical and relatively easy to sharpen, making it particularly suitable for kitchen scissors and everyday domestic use.

440B (1.4112)

440B, also known under the European designation 1.4112, is a high carbon stainless steel containing around 0.9% carbon and approximately 17% chromium.

Typical certified analysis includes around 0.86% carbon, 17.5% chromium and nearly 1% molybdenum.

Typically hardened to around 58–60 HRC, it is capable of taking a finer and more precise cutting edge while still resisting corrosion well.

It is also considerably more demanding to hot drop forge, grind and finish by hand.

More Than Steel

A good pair of scissors begins with the right steel.

But steel alone is not enough.

Geometry, heat treatment, grinding, assembly and final adjustment all play an equally important role.

A well-made pair of scissors produced from a simpler steel will often outperform a poorly made pair produced from an expensive alloy.

That understanding has long been part of the scissors trade and is still valued today.

At Ernest Wright, we continue to use steels we know well, shaped through hot drop forging, grinding and hand assembly at Kutrite Works in Sheffield.

Neither. The right choice depends on the pattern being made. Every pair in our collection is traditionally drop forged, using either hot or cold drop forging according to what the design requires. 

Hot Drop Forging

The steel is heated until it glows red, typically between 900°C and 1,200°C, before a drop hammer strikes it into the die. At this temperature, the steel becomes far more malleable, allowing us to forge robust patterns where a significant amount of material needs to be displaced.

As the hot steel is forged, its grain structure flows with the shape of the scissors rather than being cut across afterwards. This creates a strong, continuous grain structure that provides an excellent foundation for a tool that can be maintained and sharpened for generations.

Cold Drop Forging

The steel blank is struck and shaped at room temperature using considerable mechanical force rather than heat. Because the steel is forged cold rather than hot, it avoids the oxidation scale and thermal distortion associated with forging at high temperatures.

This makes cold drop forging well suited to fine, detailed work, which is exactly why we use it for the Stork only. At such a small size, with so much detail worked into its wings and feathering, the pattern simply doesn’t allow the amount of material displacement required for hot drop forging. Forging the steel cold also work-hardens it as it’s shaped, giving the thin, delicate blade built-in hardness and wear resistance from the outset.

Why the Difference Matters

Neither method is better than the other. Each suits a different kind of scissors. Hot drop forging gives the strength to forge a robust pattern in one or two strikes. Cold drop forging gives us the precision to forge a fine one without losing its detail.

Across our collection, every pattern except the Stork is hot drop forged. The Stork alone is cold drop forged because its intricate design cannot be produced by hot drop forging without compromising its detail.

Sheffield was never the only place.

Across Europe, a small number of cities and towns built reputations around the making of scissors and cutting tools. Some grew into industrial centres. Others remained quiet concentrations of specialist craft, known mainly to those inside the trade.

Most have changed beyond recognition. A few have not changed at all.

Solingen, Germany

Solingen was once known as the City of Blades, and for good reason. At its peak, the town supplied scissors, knives and razors to much of the world. The scissor-makers are gone now, but the knowledge and the equipment did not entirely disappear with them.

The Gesenkschmiede Hendrichs, a drop-forging works that closed as a factory and reopened as it stood, still operates its original machinery. Scissors are forged there today, in a building that time largely left alone.

We visit Solingen every year. Not to buy, but to exchange. Old tooling, forgings, technical knowledge. There are people there who understand this work at a level that is increasingly rare, and that conversation is worth making the journey for.

Premana, Italy

Premana is a small village in the mountains of northern Italy, and it has been making scissors and knives for centuries. The craft is still active. The quality is serious.

It is also under pressure. The younger generation is not taking it on in the numbers needed, and the workshops that remain are aware of what that means. We visit each year. The welcome is warm and the work speaks for itself, but the question of what comes next hangs over the place in a way that is familiar to anyone working in a traditional trade.

Nogent, France

Nogent, in the Champagne region, was once a centre for fine scissor and cutlery making. That tradition has largely disappeared.

Elsewhere

Other places built reputations at various points: Eskilstuna in Sweden, Albacete in Spain. The details differ but the pattern is often the same. A concentration of skill builds over generations, serves a particular market, and then contracts as conditions change.

What remains, in most cases, is the history rather than the practice.

Without the Dutch, Sheffield might never have become Sheffield.

Sheffield is proud of its steel, its cutlery, its grit. It gives credit to hard work and local character, not outside influence. That pride is earned.

But the story is more complicated.

Long before steam engines, Sheffield’s rivers did the work. The Don, the Sheaf, the Porter and the Rivelin, four rivers flowing down from the Pennines, driving grinding wheels and tilt hammers wherever the current was strong enough. The workshops followed the water.

Water, though, goes where it wants.

In the seventeenth century, a Dutch engineer named Cornelius Vermuyden came to England to drain marshland on a scale nobody had attempted before. His work was centred in Yorkshire, not far from here. He brought workers who understood water. Whether his influence reached Sheffield directly is something historians still argue about.

But it raises a question worth sitting with.

If Sheffield’s rivers made its industry possible, who helped England learn to manage its water?

The water question may never be fully settled. But there is an older connection, and a clearer one.

In the days of Queen Elizabeth, a number of persecuted Dutch artisans sought refuge in England. Workers in steel among them took up residence in Sheffield, and contemporary accounts suggest they materially assisted in the development of the local industry. This was not influence at a distance. These were craftsmen, working alongside Sheffield makers, in Sheffield workshops.

Coal was nearby. Swedish iron arrived through the Humber ports. Trade routes connected the city to the Continent. Sheffield was never isolated. Ideas came in, materials came in, people came in, and Sheffield turned them into something nobody else could make.

What made the city remarkable was not any single advantage.

It was what happened between people.

One workshop forged. Another hardened. Another ground. Another polished. Skills passed from master to apprentice, street to street, generation to generation. No single person knew everything. Together they knew more than anyone else in the world.

That restlessness produced Benjamin Huntsman, Henry Bessemer, Harry Brearley. Cast steel, mass steel, stainless steel. Three revolutions, one city.

By the late nineteenth century, “Made in Sheffield” needed no explanation anywhere on earth.

So did the Dutch make Sheffield? No. Did Sheffield make itself entirely alone? Probably not either.

The city became what it became because it knew what to do with everything that arrived here. That is a different kind of pride, quieter, more confident, and perhaps harder to argue with.

Including, from time to time, a Dutchman.