Sabino Henda at the polishing wheel in the Ernest Wright workshop, looking up to the camera, gloved hands at the work, racked mops and blades beside him.
Makers

Sabino Henda

Scissor Polisher · Ernest Wright

Sheffield, South Yorkshire

Documentary Archive · June 2026 · The Sheffield Trade

Thirteen years on the wheel - the last skilled hand a pair of scissors passes through before it carries the maker’s mark.

Name Sabino Henda
Trade Scissor polisher
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 Thirteen years · on the polishing wheel
Craft status Scissor making on the Heritage Crafts Red List
Archive ID MK-0029

The Polisher

Sabino Henda has spent thirteen years at Ernest Wright on the polishing wheel - the last skilled stage a pair of scissors goes through before it leaves the building. By the time a pair reaches him it has been forged, ground, hardened and married together; what it does not yet have is its finish. That is his work: holding the steel to a spinning cloth mop, charged with polishing compound, until the dull grey comes up to a clean bright shine. It is the difference between a tool that works and one that looks like it was made to.

Sabino Henda in a cap, ear defenders and safety glasses with a scarf at his neck, a blackened glove raised, standing at his polishing station, a clock on the wall behind.
Sabino Henda at his polishing station - thirteen years on the wheel. IM-0795

At the Wheel

Polishing is dust and judgement. The mop runs fast, the compound and the lifted metal throw a fine black dust into the air, and Sabino works with ear defenders on and a scarf pulled up over his face against it. The pair is held to the wheel by hand, turned and angled so every face and edge takes the same finish, and held a moment too long it will burn or lose its line. Thirteen years is what it takes to do this without thinking about it - to feel when a pair is right and move it on.

Sabino in profile at the polishing wheel, a scarf pulled up over his nose against the dust, working a pair against the spinning mop.
Scarf up against the dust, a pair worked against the mop. IM-0799
Sabino seen from behind at the polishing bench, leaning into the work, the buffing wheel and motor below, part-finished blades racked along the bench to his left.
Leaning into the wheel, blades racked along the bench to his left. IM-0797
Sabino at his polishing machine in conversation with another maker in the foreground, the white buffing wheel on its spindle beside him.
A word with a colleague, the buffing wheel idling at his side. IM-0796

The Polishing Wheel

His machine is a simple thing and an exacting one: a motor, a spindle, and the cloth mops that do the work, with spares hung on the wall to be swapped in as they wear down. Each mop is dressed and worn to the job, and a polisher knows his wheels the way a grinder knows his stones. It is the quietest-looking station on the floor and one of the hardest to fake - the shine on a finished pair is the most visible thing about it, and it either reads as right or it does not.

The polishing machine standing empty: buffing and abrasive wheels on the spindle, the motor and drive below, spare polishing mops hanging on the wall above, a stool to one side.
The polishing machine, between jobs - spare mops hung ready above. IM-0798

The Record the Archive Holds

This is the archive’s record of Sabino Henda, made at Ernest Wright in Sheffield in June 2026: thirteen years at the polishing wheel, the hand that gives every pair its final shine. Scissor making is on the Heritage Crafts Red List, and the trade depends on each of its stages being held by someone who has done it long enough to do it well. The bright finish on a pair of Ernest Wright scissors is his signature, even though it carries someone else’s name.

A tray of finished bright scissors and shears laid in rows, handles and blades polished to a shine.
A tray of finished pairs - tailor shears, dressmakers, household scissors. IM-0722