Straight shears

What it is

Straight shears are the glassblower’s scissors: two straight-edged blades on a pivot, “essentially bulky scissors, used for making linear cuts”.⁠^⁠[3] Murano’s glass museum describes them as one of the two main kinds of shears a glassmaker uses while shaping a piece, alongside diamond shears: straight shears have straight-edged blades like ordinary scissors and are used for linear cuts.⁠^⁠[1]

How it’s used

The museum’s glossary describes shears as the tool used during shaping “to cut away excess glass”,⁠^⁠[1] and straight shears are the ones for straight cuts.⁠^⁠[1]⁠[3] Makers in this archive sell them in several sizes and blade shapes under names like “cut-off”, “bubble”, and “trim” shears; their descriptions on each tool’s page say what each is for.

History

In Murano shears are taiante or tagiante, from the Venetian taiar, “to cut” (Italian tagliare), and straight shears are taianti drite.⁠^⁠[2]

In the United States, Jeff Lindsay began making shears in the late 1970s after settling on D2 tool steel for the blades, which he found don’t wear out. Cutting D2 by hand saw was slow, and his company Cutting Edge Products began in 1998, when CNC machines could cut the blades consistently.⁠^⁠[4]