Production #05

Great scissors,
      Good Stuff

A tool frome the Hanse Era

The long production process for woollen cloth often continued after weaving with finishing the fabric: the felting by fulling and subsequent shearing. The cloth shearers scraped the upper loose fibres of a woollen cloth out of the felt with jagged natural thistles or hand carders from the rolled and thus matted woollen cloth. These are cut back to an even length with cloth scissors. This gives the cloth a flat and dense surface and makes it windproof and waterproof. Cloth shears have been around for a long time; the Romans had already developed the technique of cloth shearing. A pair of scissors could weigh 18-20 kg. In Dinkelsbühl, for example, they had their own grinding house. It was not until the 19th century that work with cloth scissors was replaced by machines.

Anonymous: Tailor Hans Fruman (1446). Drawing. Dimensions: 27.6 × 18.8 cm. In: House Book of the Mendel Twelve Brothers Foundation, Volume I (14261549). City library in the educational campus of Nuremberg. Amb. 317.2°, f. 67v.

The cloth shearer brings the pile of the fabric to a uniform height with cloth shears. It wasn’t until the 19th century that shearing machines made heavy and strenuous work easier.

Cloth shearing scissors
House of History Dinkelsbühl – of war and peace Dinkelsbühl (Germany)
17th century
Forged iron