Why Granny! What big knives you have… 

Wonders never cease.

I believed that these had been lost when my grandmother moved to the nursing-home. But I found them under a whole pile of junk in a drawer at home. Right at the back. Probably why I never found them before, on previous sweeps around the house.

This fearsome-looking digit detachment-device…also known as HUGE GODDAMN SCISSORS!…is my grandmother’s original pair of dressmaker’s shears!

I remember these from when I was a little boy, and when gran used to scold me for snapping them around with innocent childish glee.

These cold steel hedge-trimmers were what my grandmother used to cut the cloth from which she used to make clothing back in the 50s. They’re professional dressmaking shears, not scissors…shears. And now they’re all mine, with which to flirt with the possibility of horrendous injury on a daily basis!

The shears, as far as I can tell, are about 60 years old. They’re made by the J. Wiss & Sons company of Newark, New Jersey, U.S.A., a respected German-American toolmaking firm of over 100-years experience and manufacture of bladed instruments. They’re the No. 28 bent-handle shears, meaning that they’re dressmaking shears, with an 8-1/8th inch overall length, and with a cutting-length of 3-7/8th inches. The bent handles at the end (which are deliberately bent upwards) are so that you can cut fabric while it’s lying on the table, without the bottom handle getting in the way.

Near as I can figure, these shears date to ca. 1950. I have found variations of the No. 28 shears in Wiss catalogues dating as far back as 1915, and as recent as right now, on a website selling J. Wiss products, but only the shears from the 1950s exactly match the ones I have on my desk right now. They’re stamped with the words:

“STEEL FORGED”
NO. 28″

inside an anvil-shape, on one side of the pivot, and…

WISS
Newark, N.J.
U.S.A.

…on the other, and WISS – INLAID, on the same side, along the blade.

They come with nice, black, Japanned handles, and the entire thing is made of steel. The shears are made of two parts (handle and blade – left, handle and blade – right), plus a screw and rivet at the pivot-point. There’s no plastic anywhere. That means that there’s nothing here which can snap off or warp or bend or crack and break. Solid, dependable and sharp.

These are not the biggest dressmaker’s shears you can buy, and nor are they the smallest. Wiss & Sons sell shears in sizes anywhere from 6.5 inches, all the way up to monsters which are a foot long! These are kind of like middle-of-the-road shears.

I had them professionally sharpened, and now, they’re back to being functional shears once more. Originally, the pivot was very stiff and squeaky. I tried to remedy this with oil, but it didn’t do anything to help the situation. In the end, I found that the best solution was to soak the scissors in an ultrasonic bath full of hot water. The heat and the sonic vibrations loosened up all the rust and gunk and dust and oil inside the pivot-point, and now the shears swing and slice cleanly, smoothly, sharply and most importantly, silently…apart from a quality-reassuring ‘schink!’ with each closure of the blades…

I cleaned the shears and have since added them to my growing pile of stuff that I need to restore my grandmother’s 1950 Singer 99k. Here’s a photo I took showing (most) of the stuff I gathered so far:

Looking for a pair of top-quality dressmaking shears like granny’s? Here’s a website with information on the company which made the ones I have: Joseph Wiss & Sons website.

J. Wiss & Sons officially lasted from 1848-1976. But the J. Wiss & Sons. brand is still used today, and you can still buy their marvellous, gigantic, all-steel dressmaker’s and tailor’s shears today.