On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 19:39:41 -0600, "Barry N. Turner"
> wrote:

>I wasn't successful in my sharpening efforts, but I was able to speed up the
>need to purchase a new pair quite a bit. After my misguided sharpening
>effort, the old ones wouldn't work at all. Heck, there was close to an
>eighth inch gap between the jaws when they were fully closed. by the time I
>finished.

Some tools of this type have a "stop" in the jaw, so that when the
stop is closed the blades are almost, but not quite, touching. If you
sharpen the blades on this type of tool you need to grind back the
stop so that when you are done, the edges again *almost* touch.

Hoof nippers (used by farriers) are this type of tool. The good ones
cost ~$150 to buy, and ~$75 to have them rebuilt because of how tricky
it is to sharpen and realign the cutting edges. See:

<http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=GE+nippers+rebuild>

jc