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

[feebeeglee.livejournal.com]

Are the scissors that say they work for right *and* left handed folks a lie? I found some that make that claim in bulk packs.

[ncp.livejournal.com]

The Leftorium?

[siderea]

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?)

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.

[* Get a pair of scissors and look at them, and you'll see the blades are sharpened on the "insides", so the sharp parts are what meet. If you look closely, you'll see they're pretty much identical, but one is rotated on top, so the bottom blade of a righty pair is sharp on the right, and the upper blade is sharp on the side that would be on the right, only it's rotated up by 180deg, so it's sharp side is on the left.]

So, no, not without re-angling the blades.

[conuly]

They are absolutely a lie*. They're just righty scissors with funny handles!

In order to be a left-handed pair of scissors, the scissors are jointed in a different way. Compare these righty scissors to these lefty scissors. Just changing the handles won't change the fact that when using the wrong scissors for your hand you a. have to move your hand in an uncomfortable, unnatural way and b. can't see your cutting line, so even if you succeed in doing more than just bending the paper you still can't see what you're doing.

[feebeeglee.livejournal.com]

I thought they would be a lie. I'll keep looking.

[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?

[conuly]

Incidentally, a fun experiment that I recommend for any parent of a left-hander, or any teacher of early elementary school? Get a pair of child's left-handed scissors, put them in your right hand, and try cutting something.

[conuly]

Do you realize that's an actual website? Wow. (But it's not porn. Yay?)

[conuly]

And, uh, they're British, so it's definitely cheaper to buy American and save on shipping.

[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...

[siderea]

How about $1.26ea + $4.95 s&h? I checked: you can by 20, maybe more, for the same $4.95 s&h

[conuly]

If the S&H doesn't stack then that is definitely the best price! *hugs* I'll stock up now and just, you know, dole them out!

[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.

[siderea]

Yay! Glad to have been of service. The magic trick I used was Froogle.

[feebeeglee.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know that from school. I always ended up with the LEFTY scissors. I had fine motor issues as a kid anyway and that made it worse.

[conuly]

Really? Why the heck did they do that to you? Should not the left-handed children have gotten them?

[conuly]

You are my hero.

[siderea]

BTW, you might want to buy those in a hurry. Some quick comparison shopping shows that all their competitors are selling the same model for 10x more. I can't imagine how they stay in business with prices that low.

[feebeeglee.livejournal.com]

The opposite problem from you. We had an abundance of left scissors and a shortage of right. Or maybe the teachers were just assholes. I know at least two of them that were sadistic bastards.

[conuly]

Well, damn. I'll order them in the morning, then, after I go over my finances. (A pretty fancy term for my paltry pay, but there you go.)

[conuly]

That is so weird. Maybe they expected that most children would bring their own...?

[sayga.livejournal.com]

We had TONS of left handed scissors in the classroom when I was a kid. Which worked out great for me because I could use either and liked to switch randomly.

[sayga.livejournal.com]

I finally bought Kira a pair of Lefty scissors and spent over eight bucks on them. I was NOT pleased about that. I'm worried they'll get lost and so I don't want to send them to school with her, but if I don't, then what's the point? ARGH.

[feebeeglee.livejournal.com]

That's how it was for me too. This was thirty years ago, mind.

[siderea]

Attrition. If they had more lefty-scissors per lefty than righty-scissors per righty -- which is plausible if they bought the lefties in bulk so had more than they needed -- the righties would wear out faster than the lefties. So eventually the less-used lefties would accumulate.

[xianghua.livejournal.com]

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

[dandelion.livejournal.com]

Ditto. Mainly because they'd set it up so there were almost as many left-handed scissors as right, and of course the right-handers vastly outnumbered the lefties.

[conuly]

Well, use siderea's link and pick up a few more for just-in-case. (I actually managed to snag a pair for me a while back at a discount store for $2, which is a damn good price for quality scissors no matter what. I was thrilled! Now I have spares!)

[conuly]

Oh, that does make sense.

[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]

So I might not need to rush, then.

[conuly]

True.

[leora.livejournal.com]

Happened to me as well. I could not cut at all. However, I couldn't really cut with the right-handed scissors either. The scissors they make for kids (at least the ones I was given) sucked so much. For years I thought I couldn't use scissors and it just wasn't a skill I had. But as soon as I started using real scissors, I had no problems. I hate children's scissors. The safety angle is nice, except that they make it so annoying that it simply was not worth it to ever use them. Any project that required scissors was sufficiently unfun to not be worth doing. So, the safety they provide is by convincing me that I don't want to use scissors at all.

[siderea]

Or, you know, they had an absent character typo entering the price on the website. ETA: it's extremely unusual for a manufacturer to undersell their retailers by quite that much. Typically retailers respond by refusing to carry the product any more (because why bother trying to selling something nobody will buy from you?), and they then lose marketshare due to reduced exposure.

[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.)

[lizziey.livejournal.com]

Perhaps, like the classes you're funding, people kept donating lefty scissors figuring you couldn't ever have enough because there never were enough when they were young?

[lizziey.livejournal.com]

Annika is a lefty, you know. I blame you (and Chris).

[conuly]

I've never even MET the baby!

[conuly]

LOL, maybe!

But I intend to get righty scissors too. I'm thinking one pair of righties for every student in the class, plus five or six lefties. And a few extra of each, then.

[lizziey.livejournal.com]

You rubbed off on her at the Children's Museum, I know you did.

[conuly]

Yeah, you're insane.

[lizziey.livejournal.com]

SHE'S LEFT HANDED. >:( I swore to not have any lefties, darnit. (No, it doesn't matter that I had married one, that doesn't count, that was a fluke. my fiance is righthanded!!!)

[conuly]

Given that lefties are disproportionately represented in Hollywood, the presidency, Nobel Prize winners, the art world, and Mensa, I don't see why you're complaining.

[lizziey.livejournal.com]

And this is why you can't argue with a lefty. They pull out all these facts to cloud the argument with!

[siderea]

You did not understand what I said. I did not say that a 10X markup is unusual. I said undercutting your retailers by 90% is unusual, and that there is a very good economic reason for that.

[siderea]

You did not understand what I said. I did not say that a 10X markup is unusual. I said undercutting your retailers by 90% is unusual, and that there is a very good economic reason for that.

I see no point in responding to the substance of anything you say until you have done me the basic courtesy of responding to the substance of what I have said.

[conuly]

Fascinating as this is, can you guys take it to email? I think we've hit the point where everybody is just going to repeat their arguments, and I'm not sure I need that on my recent comments page :)