Incomes of professional hairdressers decreased significantly after the sale of inexpensive electric hair clippers. After all, visitors to hairdressers, especially men, quickly realized that such a device would help them save on a haircut.

When knives need to be sharpened

However, sooner or later, home hairdressers face a serious problem when the knives of a hair clipper become so dull that it becomes simply impossible to make a normal hairstyle. There are two ways to solve this problem. Buy a new machine or try to sharpen the blades yourself. The second option looks preferable, since there are at least four effective methods that allow you to grind any cutting surfaces yourself.

Modern trimmers are equipped with steel or ceramic knives, the cutting part of which is often covered with a protective layer of diamond, titanium or carbon spraying. However, even such durable blades with frequent use lose their sharpness, which leads to the following problems:

  • it becomes very difficult to straighten hair;
  • during the haircut, the cutting part of the device begins to yank and wrinkle hair, causing unpleasant pain;
  • at the end of the procedure, the skin on the head is very irritated, up to small cuts.

There are several ways to fix this problem, but they all begin with a disassembly of the machine:

  • disconnect the knife block from the body;
  • unscrew the screws;
  • disconnect the blade;
  • we clean the cutting and working parts from dirt and hair residues with a special brush or clean rags soaked in water.
Attention!!! The process of disassembling the trimmer should be removed to the camera of a mobile phone, so that when assembling this household unit there are no "extra" parts.

After disassembling the cutting unit and cleaning the blades — this process must be performed after each haircut — you can proceed to one of four effective types of sharpening.

Using a grinding machine

This method requires increased caution, as well as the presence of stationary or manual grinding equipment:

  • the removed and cleaned knives we press the cutting part to the grinding wheel;
  • turn on the machine;
  • we sharpen blades to a mirror shine;
  • we clean knives (it is better to wash) from abrasive materials;
  • we collect the cutting block and install it on the machine.
Disadvantages: labor-intensive process, expensive equipment and not the highest quality.

With a drill

You can sharpen the elements of the cutting part of the hair clipper on a special fine-grained grinding nozzle mounted on a conventional drill. The procedure for this procedure almost completely repeats the previous method, and the main drawback is the high risk of injury.

Therefore, during sharpening with a drill, you must use glasses and gloves.

With a grindstone

With this method, a two-sided block is needed, one side of which is intended for direct sharpening, and the other for final fine-tuning:

  • we put the grindstone on a flat surface with the “rough” side up;
  • we fix the blade with a magnetic holder;
  • smoothly and without much pressure, we hold the cutting part of the knife at an angle of 30 to 45 degrees (depending on the manufacturer) from one to the other edge of the bar at least seven times;
  • turn the block with the fine-grained side up;
  • we carry out the final finishing of the blades to a mirror shine;
  • thoroughly rinse, dry and install greased knives on the machine.
Disadvantages: a rather time-consuming process and not an ideal result.However, this method is more efficient than grinding on a grinding machine.

On a professional machine

This option is more suitable for hairdressers, whose working tool requires regular - at least 4 times a year - and high-precision sharpening. At the same time, only a special machine can ensure the high quality of this process, which significantly reduces the time for this procedure.

The action algorithm in this case looks like this:

  • remove the knives from the trimmer;
  • we cover the grinding disk cleaned from dust and dirt with an even layer of abrasive paste;
  • we fix the knife on the magnetic holder with the cutting edge down;
  • we start the machine at a certain speed (indicated in the instructions);
  • we bring the knife to the circle and begin the sharpening process, with the smooth movements of the blade, the teeth of which should be directed against the movement of the grinding disk, from the edge to the central part.

The main disadvantage of this method is the high cost of a professional machine tool and consumables.

Adjustment

Each of these four knife sharpener options is available at home. However, even perfectly sharpened blades will not work correctly if they were installed without adjustment when assembling the cutting part:

  • the serrated edge of the upper blade should be shifted 1-2 mm horizontally relative to the serrated edge of the lower knife;
  • the cutting part of the first tooth of the moving knife in the longitudinal plane is in line with the serrated edge of the fixed blade.

The life of a modern trimmer can really be significantly extended. To do this, you need very little - to remove, remove dirt and lubricate the blade after each haircut, as well as to master simple techniques for sharpening and adjusting knives.