I finally settled on my lefty scissors plan.

[conuly]

Outfit pre-k by the end of this year (which is, uh, coming up on us FAST), and then kindergarten next year and so on.

Except I've run into a snag. Lefty scissors are more expensive than righty scissors for some arcane reason, and you can't buy them in bulk. I could buy a "classroom pack" of 12 scissors (small classes some people have!) at barely more than the price of one scissor, but there's no such option for lefty scissors! (Not even cheapo scissors necessarily, either.) And while I appreciate that you're unlikely to have a class of 24 (or even 12!) left-handed students, you'll probably have more than one. Remember, Ana's class this year has five! Unless they're some kind of statistical anomaly and the other first grades have none at all, they actually do have enough lefties that, if they wanted to, they actually could make an entire class where the majority isn't right-handed. (And wouldn't that be an interesting social experiment? Well, maybe not. Depends on how far we run with it, I guess.)

So I have two questions.

1. Where is the cheapest place to get left-handed kids scissors? Safety scissors, that is. Blunt tip, short blade if possible.

2. Lefty scissors are, of course, scissors jointed "backwards" from righty scissors. Is it possible to take a pair of right-handed scissors, take them apart, and re-attach them to be left-handed? Not just theoretically "sure", but how would you do this? (Or can't it be done?)

Comments

[conuly]

I am certain it is impossible, because the critical difference in Lefty scissors isn't only the joint. The blades themselves are sharpened on the right sides[*] of a righty pair. You'd have to have them resharpened on the alternate sides, and I don't know that that's even possible.

1. Oooh, you're right.

2. Somebody on P101 claims to have a pair that's actually lefty-righty and sharpened on all sides or something, but I have no idea if she's telling the truth because I lost the thread before I remembered to see if she posted a pic to prove it. I guess she is, why would she make that up?

[rachelkachel]

I think it would be possible, but probably unsafe, to make a pair of scissors with both edges sharpened - then you could flip the handles 180 degrees and cut with the other edges.

In trying to sketch this, I am becoming unsure of my conclusions. Each half would have to be absolutely symmetrical, and generally there's an angle to them...

[xianghua.livejournal.com]

I actually think this wouldn't work. Scissors don't meet at the edge, they're asymetrical.

[pne.livejournal.com]

I've seen a picture of scissors like you describe somewhere.

Though I think you had to flip the handles 350 degrees rather than 180. (Well, one handle 350 degrees, or both handles 175 degrees each, so I suppose 180 works as well.)

[siderea]

It's theoretically possible. I don't know how well they'd cut, but you could sharpen a pair of scissors so the blades were perfectly square, and then if you could pop the pin, you could reassemble them the other way and they'd be ambidexterous.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

Even if you could make reversible scissors sharpened on all sides, they would not be anything like the *safety* scissors one wants in a classroom of young children.

[conuly]

True.