Eli5: why are the tips of scissors worse at cutting than the base?
In: 38
The blades aren’t perfectly flat so they diverge more as you get farther from the hinge. Unless they’re like, really nice expensive scissors.
In addition to the other comments, since the base is closer to the hinge, more force is applied there thru leverage than further down the blade.
They aren’t, necessarily. Scissors are not particularly sharp – they do not cut like a knife.
Scissors cut by having the blades slide past one another, shearing the material. It only works if there’s no room between the blades for the material to slip through.
The blades are a little bit bendy, though, and the hinge isn’t perfect. Out by the tips, there is usually some room for the material to squeeze between the blades and thus escape being cut.
They’re not inherently worse but the base is closer to your hand which affords you more control. Also we’re typically cutting paper which wobbles and flexes around alot but when it’s at the base a fair portion of it is resting between the blades and kept straight which makes cutting much easier. The tips are also more likely to ber worn out from use by trying to cut harder materials since if the base can’t cut something it slides all the way to the top where it sticks. Also from just handling the scissors or dropping them the tips are more exposed to damage.
Scissors are fastened together at the base. So they’re slightly closer together there.
And if you’re using worn scissors then they likely were primarily used more at the tip than at the base.