Scissors sharpener

Claim 1

In a portable sicssors sharpener a frame, a pair of laterally spaced grinding wheels mounted on said frame for rotation about generally horizontal axes, one of said grinding wheels being adapted to sharpen conventional scissors and the other of said grinding wheels being adapted to sharpen pinking shears, a rod extending in the same general direction as said axes of said grinding wheels, means on said frame connecting each end of said rod to said frame by a floating connection having rod guide surfaces lying in a plane substantially parallel to said axes, so that each end of said rod is capable of movement to a different or to the same extent as the other end in said plane toward and away from said grinding wheels, a movable carriage slidably engaging said rod, said carriage comprising a base portion and means on said base portion for clamping a scissors blade to said carriage, said carriage being movable toward and away from selected of said grinding wheels and being movable longitudinally along said rod for moving the scissors blade into grinding contact with the selected one of said grinding wheels, said connections between each end of said rod and said frame being disposed laterally outwardly a predetermined distance from the corresponding grinding wheel whereby said carriage can move longitudinally of said rod a sufficient amount to carry a scissors blade into grinding contact with the selected grinding wheel for substantially the full extent of the cutting edge of the blade, said clamping means on said carriage comprising a pair of laterally spaced clamping jaw portions mounted on said base portion, means disposed between each jaw portion and said base portion for resiliently opposing free movement of the jaw portion toward the base portion, said resilient means comprising a conical compression spring, and fastener means coacting between said base portion and the respective jaw portion for adjustably forcing each of the jaw portions toward said base portion and against a scissors blade, to releasably clamp the blade between the respective jaw portion and said base portion, said spring encircling the respective fastener means and being telescopically compressible to substantially a single coil thickness upon predetermined actuation of said fastener means to force said respective jaw portion toward said base portion, shallow recess means in said base portion receiving the wider end of said spring for locating the latter relative to said base portion, said recess means being of a depth just sufficient to substantially receive said spring in the completely compressed condition of the latter, pin means on said base portion spaced laterally outwardly from the respective fastener means, aperture means in each of said jaw portions through which the respective of said pin means generally loosely projects for orienting in conjunction with the respective fastener means the respective jaw portion with respect to said base portion and restraining rotational movement of each of said jaw portions relative to said base portion in the nonclamping condition of said jaw portions, at least one of said portions having roughened clamping surfaces for providing increased frictional resistance to movement of a scissors blade in the clamping condition of said jaw portions.