Today, blade manufacturers are painting blades with a certain kind of paint to make them glide through coat. When the blades are used for an extended period of time, the paint starts to flake off because dog hair is very coarse and aggressive. These paint chips are hard to get out of the coat, short of washing the dog again.
It doesn’t take that much oil to oil a blade, most groomers over oil them. When you over oil, the oil will drain through the teeth and onto the coat. So they turn to other forms of lubrication like Spray Coolants, Rem Oil, or WD-40. Blade oil is the best form of lubrication.
Blade plaque is that stuff that sticks to the inside of the teeth on your clipper blades. Most don’t pay attention to it, but in reality it’s something you need to remove and keep off your blades as part of your blade cleaning process.
Some groomers have been experiencing cord problems with clippers that have voltage converters on the end of the cord. These converters adapt 120 volts AC to DC current that runs your clipper. DC motors have more torque and seem to hold speed better in tough coat. Because of the extra weight of some of these cords, they break and short out right behind the clipper.
When you get new shears, or shears back from the sharpener, they are adjusted to cut. The adjustment for tension (or balance as some call it), is a screw or thumb wheel on the pivot of the shears. Beveled edge shears are adjusted to where the blades grab, about three-fourths of an inch from the tip. This enables the blades to slice from the pivot all the way to the tips.
Everyone is slow this time of year, and it’s a good time to go through your grooming equipment and shop equipment. This is the calm before the storm—the snowbirds are coming back and usually their pets are a mess, so our equipment has to be ready.
Calibration can be an issue when doing mobile sharpening. I did mobile sharpening in five states down here in the South before I went strictly mail-in for 15 years. Even though your equipment is solid in your van or trailer, going over bumps, hitting pot holes, and going over railroad tracks does vibrate the calibration off.
Groomers all over the world are asking questions about the new product Clipp-Aid. Does Clipp-Aid bring dull blades back to life? Is it harmless when exposed to humans and pets? With all the chemicals groomers use, is Clipp-Aid safe to use in my salon? The answer to all these questions is “Yes.”
We all hold our breath when we drop a clipper, because we hope it still runs when we pick it off the floor. Our clipper is one of the most important tools, so we have to take care of it. We do our monthly maintenance…
Gritty blades are the result of the sharpener not taking the time to clean the blade thoroughly after it’s sharpened. Grit sticks to a blade after it’s taken off the sharpening wheel, because it’s “magnetized” from the metal-to-metal contact on the spinning wheel.
A new tool has come into the grooming industry, and it has amazed every groomer that has used it. It is a must have for anyone who grinds nails after clipping. This diamond-coated carbide wheel replaces the paper wheels you’re putting on your Dremel to grind nails. It fits on the mantle you’re currently using on your Dremel,
To be successful in this business doesn’t just depend on your knowledge of grooming or the equipment you use. It can also depend on some very basic goals that you accomplish every day. They are simple goals, such as making money, customer perspective, and safety. These three little goals pass through our minds, but we never really think about how much they impact us every day we work.