Scissors: Forged, Ground Hollow and Set

As the Sheffield cutlery trade made them, each scissor blade and its bow (finger loop) is forged from steel: a hole is punched through the flattened rod and opened over the point of a small beaked anvil to form the bow. Die-forging under a heavy stamp, with the surplus rim sheared off in a fly-press, was replacing hand forging by 1913. The blades are annealed, filed and drilled for the rivet, then ground: each is hollow on its inner face, concave from rivet to point, and given a slight twist toward the other so the edges meet along their whole length. The pair is fitted, wound with iron wire, hardened, reground and polished, and finally riveted together and set.