Straight-Line Scissors A Cut Above The Rest

After six months of research the first year industrial design student at Budapest's Moholy-Nagy Art University (pron: Mo-hoy Nudge), came up with a pair of scissors that can cut a truly straight line. His idea was to make use of the most everyday object present when cutting: the table."When people cut something usually there is a table around too and I thought why not use the table as the surface that would serve as the bottom of the cutting machine, and since the table has an edge that could be used as the place where the cut happens," said Fekete.

Fekete's patented scissors, called 'Vector', work like conventional scissors when cutting curves or other shapes but come into their own when cutting straight lines, something that users of conventional scissors usualy find difficult.

"The key idea is that this device should keep the blade stable on a straight line so that the cut happens while the blade is fixed on a stable point. So I created a handle to fit this concept; the lower handle keeps the blade along the line of the table and thus if we put the paper over it we can cut straight," Fekete said.

The thickness of the handles makes it possible to use the scissors even with the tip of the fingers, which is essential when the tabletop is very thick, he added.

Fekete's design teacher, Moholy-Nagy Art University's Pal Koos (pron: Pal Keesh) says he was impressed when he learned of his student's idea to redesign an everyday tool that, for centuries, has been taken for granted.

"I really liked it. I think this is exactly that was potentially in this object, in the scissors as possible development. So I think this was a very logical and very natural idea," he said.

Fekete says the new tool could become useful not only for cutting wrapping paper at Christmas but also for professionals like fashion designer Agota Nagy (pron: Agota Nudge).

As owner of the 'Agota Nagy Collection' the entrepreneur cuts fine textiles with high precision for hours on end each day. She's tried out the Vector and says she found it surprisingly effective.

"It was quite an experience, obviously I have not yet held anything like this. This really cuts in very straight line, I could not cut with my own scissors such a straight line without a lead. So this is an absolute plus for this scissor and I've tried it can also cut various curves. It was strange at first, one has to get used to it but I think it really is very interesting that you can cut an absolute straight line like an arrow," Nagy said.

So far the Vector scissors exist only as a prototype but Fekete hopes his idea will spark interest from manufacturers.

"It's in the concept phase at present, it's an idea that works and it's been patented and now we're doing further developing and hopefully next is production in the not too distant future," he said