A Very Important Darkroom Accessory: Children's Scissors

[Alan Townsend]

When at Walmart (America's largest chain store) last year, I stumbled across the place in school goods where they kept the childrens scissors, you know, the very short scissors with the rounded tips, and I bought half a dozen at $1.00 each. I had looked for these before, thinking they would be good for changing bag use due to the rounded tips not being able to punch holes in the dark cloth. And I was completely correct. For 35mm, these are the best, maybe not for roll film. Even for cutting negative as well as trimming tongues after bulk loding, these are absolutely perfect. When I was a kid, the school scissors were cast metal and poor quality. Today, we have stainless steel with nice plastic handles, much better quality and made in China and very cheap. A few years ago, I had to buy an expensive negative cutter to cut my 35mm negatives, but these kiddie scissors work just as well since the are the correct length and easy to see where you are cutting. My strong recommendation.

 

[Chromium VI]

I never can find my scissors when I need them and always end using an X-acto knife in the dark when loading my tanks. (IDK how I haven't cut myself yet, don't try this at home kids)

 

[Taylor K Nankervis]

While I am not involved in darkroom practice, I do have a lot of positives (transparency) to cut on the lightbox before sleeving. To that end I've used, for around 17 years now, Fiskars Point shears — you won't find them in school supplies, but more generally in specialist craft stores; extremely sharp (and pointy!), they maintain their tack cutting into the often-narrow rebate between frames. Never had a mishap. Would not recommend these for kids because the point is very easily able to puncture fingers, and woe betide you if the shears should fall off the floor and onto your foot — easily able to penetrate the top of a shoe!! A scalpel is also handy sometimes when positioning a tranny into a mask prior to taping down.

 

[mshchem]

Those children's scissors work for a couple limited uses in my darkroom. They come in handy. I have some old but in good service, dressmaker shears I use to cut negatives.