Twice as sharp sharpening system
This is pretty much the standard sharpening system used world wide for sharpening scissors. Built by Wolff industries over in the USA. If you have seen someone professionally sharpening scissors there is a pretty good chance it was one of these they were using.
In essence it is a high quality bench grinder with a clamp system which keeps the object being ground at the correct angle at approx the centre line of the grinding wheels. It can be used with scissors still in one piece or you can split the blades from the pivot.
It has its limitations as it can't easily create a proper convex edge but the vast majority of scissors used outside of hair cutting are bevel edge.
A typical pair of cheap scissors in the clamp for sharpening
The system comes in two basic flavours.
The twins
Left hand machine the Ookami gold, right the standard machine
Industrial System
There is the standard TAS which is used for normal scissors and pinking shears. This uses a pretty standard 100 grit grinding wheel for putting the new cutting edge on it and then there is a reasonably standard honing wheel to polish the edge and to ensure the burr is completely gone. This will get most household and dress making scissors as sharp or sharper than when they left the factory.
Note the white standard grinding wheel nearest and the grey honing wheel
Ookami Gold system
There is also the Ookami gold system which is more aimed at high end hairdressing and grooming scissors. This is fitted with a 800 grit diamond wheel which is a much finer cutting wheel than the 100 grit industrial wheel. There is also a different kind of honing and polishing wheel which should be used with a polishing compound. This system is perfect for bevel edge hair dressing scissors and it can get them as sharp as new or sharper.
Note the silver diamond coated wheel nearest and the red honing wheel
See it in action in this blog post
Now why have I got both?
Firstly I can sharpen normal scissors and pinking shears using the TORMEK but it doesn't do a brilliant job so I felt it was time for an upgrade.
Secondly when you buy the Ookami gold system it comes with a set of standard grinding and honing wheels.
The diamond wheel can be used for normal scissors but it is slow and it’s a very expensive thing to replace after it wears out. The standard wheel is much better and cheaper £20 instead of £200
So instead of swapping wheels over constantly which always brings in a chance for errors I bought a second bare spindle machine and fitted this with the standard wheels
Also should one of them suffer a breakdown I can swap wheels over to give me a back-up.