Reasons Your Clipper Is Not Cutting Hair
Clipper is very necessary for ensuring neatness and good looks on our hair, due to the quest to avoid infections coming from the contaminations in public clippers used by the barbers, many people have resorted to buying and using clippers for private purpose, with this they can go to a barbing salon with their personal clipper to have a hair cut.
The number of people buying clippers for personal use is increasing daily and the demand for the clipper parts is also increasing daily, such that in future barbers may not be making use of the clippers always due to the clippers in their customer’s possession.
But the problem with the use of these personal clippers is their maintenance and ways of handling it when it starts having a problem in its function. The main frustrating problem of the clipper is when it can not cut hair at all and yet humming with sound.
The following are the things to check when the clipper cannot cut hair or having a problem in its functions:
CHECK THE BLADE BOLTS FOR OVER TORQUE
Confirm if the screws used in tightening the upper blade against the lower blade fixed to the clipper slider are over tightened. If the bolts are over tightened they create a much compressive force against the sliding blade that is below it thereby preventing it from sliding.
Hence there wouldn’t be any cutting action while the clipper is ON only the humming sound of the clipper will be heard but the blades can’t move.
REMOVE THE BLADES AND CLEAN WITH SOLVENT
When the gap between the two blades has been filled with hair particles or accumulated dust the blades will start having difficulty in sliding against each other which is the basic working principle of clippers at the most situation it could make the blades to be unable to cut hair.
Note that besides stopping the blade from cutting hair, the accumulated hair pair particles or dusts creates less friction between the blades thereby requiring higher voltage supply to the clipper coil.
This enables it to increase the sliding speed and make the blades to cut properly this action causes the clipper coil to suffer from overheating due to high voltage supply and overload on the sliding blade thereby reducing the life of the clipper coil or make it burn after a prolonged use.
ADJUST THE BLADE MOVER WHERE THE BLADE SEATS
When the blade slider that helps the sliding blade to establish contact with the clipper coil, shifts its location due to pressure exerted on it during hair cutting the blades may not slide again until it is readjusted to a normal position.
Checking the seating of this part is important. Most of this slider shifting do occur at the backward side following the direction the force on the blades occur during a haircut, therefore dragging it a little forward can help it to reset itself to the actual location.
TEST THE CLIPPER AFTER LOSING THE BLADE
After losing the screws and removing the two blades switch the clipper ON ensuring your hand is not placed on the slider location since its quick action can cut your skin, then confirm if the clipper is working without the blades fixed on it.
If it is working then the problem is coming from either the slider contact with sliding blade, accumulated hair particles or dust in between the two blades or from over tightening of the upper blade. But when it cannot work without after removing the blades the problem is coming from the clipper coil.
CHECK THE SPEED SCREW ADJUSTMENT
The screw adjustment is found mostly on the right side of the clipper which comes with a key for its adjustment. Test the adjustment to ensure it is still functional using the key to screw is inside which is a way of increasing the voltage or screwing it outward which is a way of decreasing the voltage.
After confirming that the increase and decrease in the speed of the slider are working then proceed with another check.
ADD OIL TO THE BLADES
If the clipper has not been used for a long time there will be lots of friction between the two blades due to that reason you need to apply a lubricant to assist the blades in creating a friction between the two blades.
There are many clipper’s blade lubricants in the barbers market but if you do not have access to anyone a normal vegetable oil or low viscous engine oil can do the job.
CHECK THE BLADE SHARPNESS
The easy way to check the sharpness of the clipper blades is to place on the skin with very few hair to see if it can cut anyone.
If the blades are sliding and the voltage adjustment is working properly yet the clipper cannot cut large volume of hair when slowly moved across it then it blades have gone blunt and need sharpening.
The sharpening should be done by a specialist that can do it properly to ensure uniformity of the blade seats and teeth after the sharpening
WHEN COIL IS THE PROBLEM
The major way to know if the clipper coil has gone bad is to; 1) loose the cover of the clipper and bring the coil very close to your nose to confirm if there is any burnt smelling you would perceive.
If yes then the coil has probably be burnt due to overload from the blades with supply of high voltage for a prolonged time of operation which generated much heat within the circuit.
Thereby causing the insulators used to insulate the various lines in the coil wire to melt thereby creating direct contact of wires in the coil which is the major reason coils do burn or got damaged.
So in that case, the only thing to do is to give it to technicians to rewind the coil or you can buy a new coil and fix it.
WHEN ANY SCREW OF THE COIL’S ELECTROMAGNETS GOT LOOSED
When you lose the inside of the clipper at the coil position there are two electromagnets facing each other and the coil is attached to one of the electromagnets such that the magnetic flux that exists between when current is supplied is what causes the reciprocating action of the slider to occur.
But these electromagnets are held to the clipper casing with bolts or screws such that when one of the screws or bolts got loosed as a result of the steady vibrations of the clipper the electromagnets will automatically stick together when current is supplied since there will not be force to hold it in the original position with the clipper casing.
In such a case the clipper cannot slide instead it will be humming a sound while the two magnets are stocked together.
If you found out that this is the cause just re-tighten the screw or bolt that loosed and ensure its contact with the casing is strong enough to hold the electromagnets apart during the reciprocating movement of the two electromagnets.
If the casing seat for the screw has gone bad then consider changing the clipper cover by contacting other that may have a damaged clipper, just transfer the cover to yours.
