Curved blade gardening secateurs

[Rob]

Hi all

Ive had these felco secateurs for many years now.  Real favourites but as the pics show, they really need sharpening badly.  Is it possible with one of the jigs?  I dont own the scissor jig by the way.

Thanks

[grepper]

Yes.  I've done a bunch of them, and they are easy to sharpen and get very sharp!  It also gives you a chance to dissemble, clean and lubricate them.  They are so easy to sharpen, and work so much better, it's a joy to do it.

The first thing I'd do would be to dissemble them and clean up the blades on the wire brush on the grinder, then clean the handle parts with whatever works for you.

I think I used the scissors jig, which you say that you don't have one.  You could use the SVM-45 knife jig, but you would want to maintain the same place on the wheel to keep the bevel the same.  So it would require sort of a jig assisted freehand approach.  I'm sure you could do it though.  I've found the scissors jig well worth the money.  If you don't have one, you should want one!   Well worth it, and it gets scissors, shears and tin snips very sharp too!  Tin snips can be more difficult as they are very thick and sometimes the jig won't open far enough.  I wish they made a larger more heavy duty scissors jig that would accomodate thicker blades.

It looks like they are well used, so you may want to take a flat stone to the insides of the blades.  If you sharpen away and they don't seem to be getting sharp, cleaning up the inside of the blade will probably make all of the difference.  It's easy to form a burr on that steel.

The metal on those blades is not all that tough.  It's easy to sharpen and gets very sharp quickly, so you probably don't need to take too much metal off

Felco remcomendes 23 degrees.  Here is a link to the Felco site on how to maintain you pruner:
http://www.felco.com/felco/pages/maintenance.page?

You will be amazed at how beautifully those will clean up and how much better they will perform!

[Rob]

Thanks for that. Ill give it a whirl

[Elden]

You have a flat file, Rob? It works great, no disassembly required and it doesn't make your electric meter spin like the Tormek!   A touch up with a hone after the file will finish them off.

[Herman Trivilino]

I think that when I sharpened mine I used the universal support only.

[grepper]

... no disassembly required

However, that particular pair pruners would be eternally gratetful to be dissembled, cleaned and lubed!  The poor thing is actually suffering rust flaking and gunk on the blades, screws covered in corrodium, and probably dirt and other crud in the works.

[Mike Fairleigh]

Those look very similar to my Corona bypass pruners.  For those, blades are replaceable (not "disposable," but you don't have to throw the whole thing away when the time eventually comes that the blade is beyond repair).  If the same is true for yours, the cost of that might need to be weighed against the cost of the scissors jig (at least in the short term).

http://www.coronatools.com/item/bp-3180?referer=pruners
http://www.coronatools.com/item/3180-1?referer=itemparts%3ffor%3dbp-3180

They also make a carbide sharpener, which might be a good thing to go with your pruner for between-sharpening touch-ups:
http://www.coronatools.com/item/ac-8300?referer=accessories

[grepper]

Here's a diamond file that works great too:
http://www.sharpeningsupplies.com/DMT-Diamond-Flat-File-P236C104.aspx

It's also only a mm or two thick, so it's thin enough to sharpen even very small wire cutters.  Finally, I have sharp wire cutters!

[Rob]

well........I will fess up that I bought those Felco's in 1990....when I first owned a garden :-)  Ive never once even cleaned them let alone sharpened......shame on me!!

I did dismantle them and gave a sort of clean...bit beyond that now to be fair, but in fairness the brand is so good that despite my best efforts to ignore them for 1/4 century...they still work fine.  I took the blade off completely and just free handed it at circa 23 deg which was what felco's website said.

Brilliant, worked in no time at all, reassembled with a spot of silicon grease and bobs yer uncle....good as new...literally.  I do love my tormek.  I dont even own a slip stone so couldnt have done it by hand.  I do have the old bench stones for hand sharpening plane and chisel blades in the dark days but I never upgraded to a slipstone.  Will get one though cos then I can do without dis-assembley.  Having said that...it took almost 3 minutes!!  So not a biggy.

Heres the final result (after another 3 hours in my spring garden this afternoon since I sharpened)



The pics not great but it is pretty much a single facet bevel.....really was a doddle....no jigs necessary.  I did hone too and that brought a lot of gunk off

[Jeff Farris]

Rob,

I have the same tool, and I must say that Felco produces the best gardening tools I've used.

As Grepper alluded to, the opposing blade condition can really affect performance, even with a sharpened blade. While you've got it apart (next time), lap the flat side and clean the crud off the top side. The corner of the leather honing wheel and a generous application of honing compound does a brilliant job of cleaning the crud off the top, concave surface. I've lapped the flat side on the side of the Tormek wheel, but it was to prove a point. In my personal shop, I do it on a bench stone.

I've done the removable blade with the scissors jig, the knife jig and freehand, all with satisfactory results.

[Rob]

Cheers Jeff

Funny...I did lap the back side of the blade on the side of the wheel and it did indeed remove a lot of the crud :-)

The other "not blade" I think Felco call it the anvil was also shamefully cruddy and I just went at that with wd40 and a kitchen scourer.  I didnt want to risk grinding it in case it went even remotely out of true because I know the successful cutting relies on those two surfaces mating very precisely.  Basically its like a hand held guillotine isnt it?

Its never going to win a beauty contest but I have to say I was really impressed by the amount it came back to life.  Did you see the before pics?  There were about 4 really serious dings in the bevelled side....they were pushing a mm deep and the tormek just ate them for breakfast.  I didnt have a lot of trouble keeping the bevel single facet because its only short and a steady hand stopped enough wobble to keep it clean.  I doubt its 23 degrees mind but it'll be close :-)

When I re-assembled it it still looked awful...but I have a monster laurel bush directly outside my shop so I had a quick go and it was slicing through thin leaf material like it wasnt there......brilliant.....a real success with very minimal fuss.  I then spent hours pruning stuff in the garden this afternoon and it performed superbly.....so I now know what to do in 25 years from now