Why we exist
A senior surgeon explained to us what a pair of scissors does when it is only nearly good.
He heads a paediatric cardiac clinic, and he told us their scissors did not cut properly during procedures on children's hearts. Not once. Again and again.
You have to picture what he was describing. He compared it to a peanut, that is how small the structures are that are worked on there. A pair of scissors that does not separate cleanly but crushes, or slips at the tip, is not an annoyance in that place.
There, every single cut counts.
We trained as surgical instrument makers. We know what an edge looks like when it is only nearly right: the gap at the tip that the eye cannot see. The play in the joint that appears after twenty sterilisation cycles. The grind that passes on the inspection sheet and still does not feel right in the hand.
What we did not know before that conversation was what it means for the person holding them. A surgeon cannot briefly set aside scissors that will not cut. He is standing at a heart and has to carry on.
That is why we build instruments ourselves instead of buying them in and printing our name on them. And why every pair of scissors here goes under the microscope before it leaves the building.
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