The Easiest Way To Sharpen Garden Shears To Keep Them Good As New

Whether you use your green thumb to plumb the depths of maintaining a nice flower garden, a decorative bonsai tree, or an ornamental shrub in the shape of an elephant balancing on a walking globe, these projects all have one activity in common: pruning. The act of pruning your landscape is essential to keep plants healthy, control the bounds of how and where they grow, encourage flower or fruit production, rejuvenate older plants like tomatoes by cutting off new starters to propagate, and protecting people from overgrown or dangerously weak branches. With this laundry list of potential tasks, it's vital to keep your garden shears and hand pruners sharp for any contingencies.

Getting the best sharpening job on your pruning scissors requires more consideration than you might expect. If you leave the blade too dull, it won't cut; if you leave it too sharp, it might wear down prematurely — not to mention increase the risk of cutting yourself. However, the proper method for sharpening your garden shears or hand pruners is easy if you have patience and the right equipment: something to disassemble your shears (if possible), a bench vise (or some other means of clamping them in place), steel wool, a diamond file, oil, WD-40, a rag, and sandpaper. Of course, also make sure to have safety goggles and leather gloves for your own protection while working with razor-sharp edges.

If you use your shearers daily, you may need to sharpen them every six weeks. However, for less frequent use, once a year may be sufficient. But if you're finding it difficult to prune, it's time to sharpen.

If you can take your shears apart by loosening the pivot bolt, this will be a lot easier. It's not strictly necessary, though; the job can get done so long as you're able to securely clamp your tool with steady access to the bevel, that side which slopes away from the main horizontal length to create its edge.

Before you get the blade in place, clean off any dirt, rust, and sap. Do a general scrub with soapy water, dry the pruners, and then use steel wool to scrape away rust. If your garden shears have been sitting around, it should be easier to remove caked-on rust by soaking the blade in WD-40 for about 10 minutes. Just make sure to wipe off that oily coat before using steel wool.

When clamping your shears in place, have the edge facing upward so you can work the inside curve. You're going to be sharpening the factory bevel. Stand with the sharp side pointing away and run your file along the edge, applying medium pressure in one direction from base to tip. File at a 90-degree angle until you're satisfied with its sharpness. Then, use 300-grit sandpaper to smooth out burrs on the blade's backside. Lubricate your tools to prevent future rusting; try leaving the blade in a bucket of sand saturated with a quart of motor oil. Dull blades increase the chance of torn plant edges becoming infected, so on top of sharpening your best garden harvesting tools, you should be disinfecting them between uses.