It’s annoying to have to quit gardening halfway because you broke your pruning saw—even more so if you have to end up spending money on a completely new one. You should wear the right safety equipment for the pruning saw you are using at any moment. While hand gloves and boots can be enough protection for a handheld pruning saw, you’ll need a helmet to safely work with a pole pruning saw. There’s the risk of the saw falling from your hand and hitting you, as well as the possibility of a sawed-off branch falling directly on you. Additionally, you need a lot more caution to avoid injury while working with this tool. As you’d see in the video, you need a high level of precision to accurately work the teeth on a pruning saw with it. If you find caked residue on the blade, leave it in water for 5-10 minutes to soften up, and then try brushing it off again.

How I find the “Sweet Spot” (4 Parts)

Whether you use corded or cordless garden shears, electric garden shears are the best tool for doing many cutting jobs that require less precision. With electric garden shears, you can trim several hedges, shrubs, and trees in one go with minimal effort. Apply a few drops of machine oil to the moving parts and the blades. If your long-handled garden shears have wood handles, apply some natural oil like walnut or linseed oil on them. Remove any dirt or plant debris on your long-handled garden shears with a blast from your garden hose.

Read more about Jawsharpeners here.

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If necessary, give the tool a good and thorough cleaning with soapy water and a brush. Long-handled garden shears are essential for pruning or trimming high branches, tall hedges, or other hard-to-reach areas.

This ensures that your angle is consistent all the way down the blade. Once you have the shear lined up correctly, take your sharpie and draw a box around the edge of the upper jaw on the clamp so that you can re-clamp in the exact same position. This makes curved shears a little intimidating to sharpen but with a couple tips, you’ll realize they aren’t much harder than straight blades. Feel like I need to post as I am very pleased with my results ! Followed this step by step to get my super cheap C-tire knife clmaped in the “sweet spot” . Thanks for taking the time & energy to share your knowledge with the rest of us.

Test the sharpness of the scissors by cutting some scrap paper. If necessary, cut several more foil strips until the scissors cut quickly and cleanly. Start by wetting the surface of the stone with either honing oil or plain water.

If you feel any burrs on the flat side of the blade, grind them off with the stone. After sharpening, check for burrs along the inner edge of the blades. Remove the burrs by laying the inner edge of the blade flat on the stone and then drawing it very lightly across the stone. Note that your electric garden shears are more like a saw, with several tooth-like blades, each with three sharp side tips. Secure your long-handled garden shears in a bench vice with the blades open and facing upwards.

Once the knife is sharpened, we measure the sharpness of the knife again. If you don’t have diamond stones, you’ll want to get your hands on some.

When I started to find the sweet spot with the knife still level the ink was removed below the top of the bevel, lower down the side of the bevel. This tells me to move the tip down lower to get into the area that the ink was removed by the stone. I loosened the vice and rotated the tip down while keeping the knife heel resting on the one forward key pin. I locked the knife tight then reapplied the ink and retried this position.