Black-Smith Solid

When using scissors that can’t fix the handle in place and don’t have good balance, it takes extra effort to prevent wobbling. For stylists who open and close their scissors hundreds of times in a single day, even the slightest extra work can cause problems like tendovaginitis. With the innovative new “G-SHIFT” design, the scissors’ center of gravity is shifted closer to the hand, while keeping the balance set and avoiding increased centrifugal force during opening and closing operations. Together with the new handle that molds perfectly to your hand, these elements stabilize the blades, and prevent wobbling during cutting.

The joint section has the important role of joining the blade and the handle, and in these scissors, it’s fitted with 9 precision ball bearings. Thanks to this design, the movement is smooth as silk.

The new SOLID uses our proprietary Extramarise® Processing, a unique hardening process based on thorough temperature management that brings out the characteristics of the materials to the greatest extent possible. This process gives the scissors the hardness they need, as well as sufficient durability. This time, with the cooperation of the metals engineering expert Dr. Asakura, we’ve analyzed the structure of the SOLID’s raw material following the proper heat treatment processing. Comparing the SOLID’s treated material with other untreated materials, the difference is obvious. The results of this analysis proved that heat treatments can make a huge difference in scissors’ working life.

Extramarise® Processing
Extramarise® (registered trademark), is a proprietary heat treatment process* ideally suited to haircutting scissors, developed by Mizutani using data and experience accumulated over a period of more than 90 years to balance the three required properties for a good blade: structure, blade angle, and hardness.

Heat Treatment Process
The metals used for edged tools change a great deal depending on the heat treatment used. Proper heat treatment for each material must be carried out in order to fully draw out the properties of rare metals within it, such as cobalt, molybdenum, and vanadium.
Perhaps you’ve heard the term “heat tempering” before. The metals used for scissors don’t initally have sufficient hardness for this use. The stainless steel used in scissors is first heated to over 1000°C, then rapidly cooled to achieve the required hardness. This process is called “hardening.” (For Stellite and other cobalt alloys, different temperatures may be used.) Also, with only hardening, the metals are hard enough, but extremely brittle, so they undergo a “tempering” process to achieve greater durability. For even higher quality edged tools, a further treatment called “sub-zero processing” subjects the metals to a temperature of -100°C or below using materials such as liquid nitrogen in between hardening and tempering to prevent structures that have not completely undergone martensitic transformations (retained austenite) from causing deformations in the course of use (changes occurring over the course of several years).
“Hardening,” “tempering,” and “sub-zero processing” can be combined in an infinite number of ways, and carrying out the ideal combination for high-grade materials to bring out their latent properties to the greatest extent requires an abundance of knowledge and experience. Through the Extramarise® process, developed at Mizutani through analysis of massive volumes of data and experience, we provide metals which leverage the materials of their constituent elements effectively.