Jonathan Reid in a cap, arms folded, smiling to camera beside the grinding machine in the Ernest Wright workshop, a wall clock behind him.
Makers

Jonathan Reid

Scissor Maker · Ernest Wright

Sheffield, South Yorkshire

Documentary Archive · June 2026 · The Sheffield Trade

He spent his first career in front of a screen. Now he grinds steel, and the machine he loves is the one that puts the angle on the blade.

Name Jonathan Reid
Trade Putter and scissor maker
Before scissors Web development and graphic design
Workshop Ernest Wright, scissor makers since 1902
Location Sheffield, South Yorkshire
Category Makers - people whose knowledge lives in their hands and cannot exist anywhere else
Session June 2026 · a full day at the Ernest Wright workshop
At Ernest Wright About seven years · trained by two of the UK’s last master-putters
Craft status Scissor making on the Heritage Crafts Red List
Archive ID MK-0025

From a Screen to the Bench

Of all the makers I met at Ernest Wright, Jonathan Reid has the road in I keep turning over. He did not grow up grinding steel. He came to the firm from web development and graphic design - a first career spent in front of a screen - and somewhere along the way swapped the screen for a workshop founded in 1902. About seven years on, he is a putter, trained at the bench by two of the last master-putters in the country. Putting is the close work at the end of the line: taking the two finished blades and fitting them so they pass each other cleanly and cut the whole length of the stroke. It is the step that decides whether a pair of scissors snips or chews. I find it quietly hopeful that the person doing it used to build websites.

Jonathan in conversation with another maker, a respirator hanging at his neck and a cloth in his hands, racked stock behind.
A word with a colleague between runs, the respirator still hanging at his neck. IM-0762

The Machine He Loves

Ask Jonathan what he would save from the floor and he does not hesitate: the grinder. It grinds the angle into the blade, and the angle is the whole trick of a scissor. A blade is not flat. It is ground so the steel tapers from the thick back down to the edge, with a slight hollow on the inner face, so that when the two halves close they meet at a single travelling point and not along their length - hold a finished pair to the light and you can see the thread of daylight between the blades that makes it work. Get the angle wrong and the scissors crush the cloth; get it right and they shear it clean, blade after blade after blade, the big cast-iron hand wheels setting the gradient each time. I liked that a man who came from screens had fallen, of everything in the building, for the most analogue object in it - a lump of old iron with two hand wheels.

Two grinding machines head-on - tall cylindrical housings over abrasive wheels, with troughs beneath, set into a worn bench in the dark of the workshop.
The grinding machines, head-on - the wheels that grind the taper into every blade. IM-0768
Jonathan at the grinding machine, ear defenders round his neck, a blade in one hand, stacked bins of parts labelled by model and size beside him.
A blade in hand at the grinder, the bins behind him sorted by model and size. IM-0764
Jonathan beside the open grinding machine, its hood swung up, a colleague’s hand reaching across to the work, a clock on the brick wall behind.
The grinder with its hood up - this is where the blade gets its angle. IM-0763

On the Floor

Scissor making is not a quiet trade, and you feel that the moment you are on the floor with them. The machines run loud enough that Jonathan keeps ear defenders round his neck and a respirator within reach, ready to pull up, and the work is physical - feeding parts, working the wheels, moving between the grinder and the glazing station where the ground blades are brought to a shine. I watched him shift between the two with the unfussy economy of someone who has stopped having to think about it. When the workshop needs a photograph posted or a message answered, that still sometimes falls to him - the old trade earning its keep - but he is quick to say it is a thing he does now and then, not the job. The job is at the bench, and you can hear in how he says it which of his two careers he means to keep.

A wide view across the workshop: benches of part-made scissors threaded on rods, a bucket on the floor, two makers working at machines in the background.
The floor mid-shift - part-made pairs on the rods, the makers at their stations. IM-0759
A glazing station: belt-driven polishing wheels on a spindle, brushes and tools racked behind, a stool and a doorway beyond.
The glazing wheels next door, where the ground blades are brought to a polish. IM-0765
A full-length portrait of Jonathan leaning against the grinding machine, arms folded, one foot crossed, the clock and shelves behind him.
Leaning on the grinder, between runs. IM-0766

The Record the Archive Holds

This is the archive’s record of Jonathan Reid, made at Ernest Wright in Sheffield in June 2026: a putter about seven years into the trade, who came to it from web development and graphic design and stayed for the steel. Scissor making is on the Heritage Crafts Red List. The hands that learn it now are the ones that carry it forward.

A square portrait of Jonathan, arms folded, smiling, the wall clock above his shoulder and the grinding machine to the right.
Seven years from the day he swapped a screen for the bench. IM-0767