| Wool, for spinning yarn, came primarily from sheep. Nowadays, wool is sheared off of sheep using an electric razor / trimmer. But in the years before the advent of electricity, the job was performed by use of shears such as are exhibited here. The tool is made from a single piece of tin. It was important to sharpen the blade edge of the shears as sharp as possible. The sharper a tool is, the more easily it will cut, and it was necessary to get the fleece off (preferably in one piece) without injuring the sheep. The image below shows the 'back' side of the tool, revealing that it looked the same on both sides. The next image shows how the two blade edges crossed over one another. And the bottom image shows how the piece of tin would be bent and formed to allow the user to grip and squeeze it easily. |
