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ClipperGuy Says… Get to know detachable clipper blades

This document breaks down the uses and applications of the full range of sizes of snap-on-and-off detachable clipper blades for beauty and barber clippers. The best of full size clippers feature a full range of detachable clipper blades. These powerful tools offer incredible versatility and cutting options. These clippers have higher levels of power and are designed for busy-all-day professional hair cutters. I have listed the blades in ascending order from smallest to longest. From leaves the least amount of hair behind on the head, to leaves the most hair. After the blade descriptions I have provided blade groupings. These are designed to help blade sets and collections. These will meet your clients and the demands of your cutting your business and grow your skills.

some popular you build the needs of as you build

It is important to note that Andis BG series detachable blades in both UltraEdge steel and CeramicEdge series fit on all Andis and all Oster detachable blade clippers. Oster 76 series blades also fit on all Andis clippers. Many sizes are common to both brands. Some sizes are unique to one brand or the other. This will be noted in the blade descriptions.

Outliner Blade – This blade features super fine, super close and super shallow teeth, just like a trimmer blade. This blade allows you to use your full sized detachable blade clipper as a powerful trimmer. This blade can be used to line, edge, detail, trim and clean up haircut perimeters. The extra width compared to a standard trimmer makes blocking clean straight lines easy. Fewer bites along a line mean that there is less chance that the line will be crooked.

000000 – This is a super short and close fading and balding blade. This is sized almost identically to a 00000 blade. This size is offered only by Oster.

00000 – This is called a balding or skin fading blade.

The

00000 blade removes hair as close as a standard trimmer blade. The blade thickness is basically the same as the Outliner blade above, however the teeth of the comb blade are a bit wider and quite a bit deeper. This additional “tooth” allows for greater feeding of hair and thus makes it more of a clipper blade and less of a trimmer blade compared to the Outliner blade.

0000 – This is called a military blade.

It is the ideal length for cutting high and tight military looks. The long flat ramp area of the back of the comb blade makes it ideal for smooth transitions from a skinned (00000) lower back and sides up and into greater interior length as is classic in military spec hair cutting.

0000A – This is a hollow ground version of the 0000 blade above. The hollow grind makes it ideally suited to tapers confined lower down the head as opposed to higher military type blending. The cutting length is the same as a conventional 0000 blade.

000 – This is considered a standard blade for many clippers. This blade is mounted on and shipped with many clippers. This is the blade of choice for the use of snapon attachment guide combs. Guide comb lengths are calibrated with the notion of this being the blade beneath them. The 000 is also the blade used for clipper-overfinger techniques. This blade cuts smooth and precise to the guide line when hair sections are to be held in between the cutters fingers. This blade’s teeth are wide enough to feed well, but not so wide as to allow a bit of finger to be nipped when the blade is used in contact with the cutters finger/skin.

0A – This blade fills the gap between two very popular sizes, 000 and #1. Not to say that this blade does not have its uses. 0A is a great blade for clipper-over-comb cutting. It has wide and deep teeth that allow for good hair feed and flow. It is thinner than a #1 blade so it cuts closer to the comb. This can be a benefit for experienced cutters, allowing for speed and precision. It is too blunt or clean cutting for more novice clipper-overcomb cutters to get smooth blending results. It is a very useful blade in close tapering and fading. It will easily remove stubborn lines in tight fades or tapers between 000 and #1 length.

1 – All around standard, multi use blade.

Many clippers ship with this blade included with the tool. This is my favorite blade for clipper-over-comb work. The wide, deep teeth feed hair fast and smooth. The slightly thicker comb blade (compared to a 000 blade) provides a slight softening and blending of the cut. This is also a great lower edge tapering blade for many average colors and textures of hair.

1A – This is a great de-bulking blade for surface prep before fading. If a fade has grown out quite a bit and a cutter wants to get into “fade territory” immediately, this

is a great choice. It is a good choice for bottom edge tapering on longer, fuller tapers, too.

7 – This is a skipped tooth version of a 1A blade.

This is

an animal grooming blade. There is no real human application for this blade.

1 ¼ - This is a relatively new size.

Andis has added some blades sizes in between some of the more common ones. This 1 ¼ blade splits the gap between the 1A blade and the 1 ½ blade. It is a general tapering blade. These additional sizes make tight tapers and fades easier to cut. Lines between common sizes fade off smoothly and quickly.

1 ½ - This is a very useful blade for many cuts and situations. The 1 ½ blade is a great general tapering blade for bottom edge tapering on cuts taken down with a #3 ½ or #3 ¾ blade. It is also a great take down blade for shorter tapers that will be edge tapered with a #1 blade. The #1 ½ blade is also the key clipper-over-comb blade for blending very coarse and straight hair or very fine light colored hair. When lines and marks can be easily seen and difficult to smooth off this blade works miracles. The thicker comb blade softens the cut of the blade and staggers the ends of the hair. This makes it easier to remove hard lines.

1 ¾ - This is another newer size that is a gap filler blade. This size is half way in between the 1 ½ and the 2 blade. This blade is great for removing lines and blending mid length tapers.

2 – This is a standard tapering blade.

The #2 is a favorite of many barbers and clipper cutters for perimeter take-down on classic tapers. This blade is also a great bottom edge taper blade for scissor cuts. When tapering a

small amount of the bottom on scissor cuts on many hair textures the #2 leaves a perfect length.

5 – This is a skip tooth version of the #2 blade.

This is an animal grooming blade with no real application in human hair cutting.

2 ¾ - This was the first of the gap-splitter blades to be introduced. There has always been a relatively large jump from the #2 to the #3 ½ blade. By splitting this gap with an in between size a lot of barbering work and blending effort can be eliminated.

3 ½ - This is the all around standard tapering blade.

The 3 ½ blade is the first blade many barbers reach for to begin many classic cuts. This blade removes bulk and takes most hair textures and colors down to a great beginning taper length. Follow this blade with a 1 ½ or a 1A along the bottom for an easy, smooth tapered finish.

4 – Skip tooth version of the 3 ½. Again, skip tooth blades have shorter teeth on the non-moving blade. These shorter teeth serve to grab and lift hair when clippering thick and heavy coats on dogs. There is no real human application for this blade size.

3 ¾ - This is a standard tapering blade.

This is a first cut blade used to remove bulk and take a hair cut down to general tapered length. Fine tuning and edge tapering is done with shorter blades or an adjustable blade clipper along the perimeter after the hair cut is taken down to this length.

3 ¾ FC – FC refers to “finish cut”.

This is to say that it is a finer toothed and smoother finish version of the standard 3 ¾ blade. It has finer, closer spaced teeth than the standard 3 ¾ blade. This helps to provide a smoother finished effect on finer hair textures. This blade is used as a first cut, bulk removal blade for many general barbering cuts. This blade is used to remove all overgrown hair to get to the base length to execute a standard full length taper on many men’s classic tapered haircuts.

5/8 (toe blade) – This is a dog grooming blade used between toes for grooming. There is no application for this blade in human hair cutting.

5/8HT – This is a larger blade for leaving a bit of additional length beyond what the standard tapering 3 ¾ blade leaves behind. It leaves a true 5/8”. HT refers to height as in the length of hair left on the head. The HT designation was created to differentiate it from a 5/8” width blade. A 5/8” wide blade is referred to as a toe blade. It is a narrow blade used for grooming the feet, between the toes, of dogs.

3/4HT – This is currently the longest blade available in professional clipper cutting. This big blade can be used for overall bulk take-down, but the closeness of the blade teeth make feeding it through many textures of hair unrealistic. The best use of this blade is for blending short to long transitions at the crest line of classic tapered hair cuts on very straight hair. The blade is placed below the flat of the head and driven straight up. When the round of the head maxes out instead of following the curve of the head the blade is continued straight up. Some hair makes it through the long non-moving teeth to get smoothed off. Most of the hair pushes up and out of the blade and remains untouched by the cutting blade. This serves to smooth the blend area on some tough to blend cuts.

T-84 – This is a T style wide blade.

It cuts a slightly longer length than a #1 beauty and barber blade. It is originally used for horse and cattle grooming. There is very little application I human hair cutting for this blade. Heads are too small and the width of this blade prevents full contact with the head.

10 – The #10 blade is the most common blade in animal grooming. Many clippers ship with the #10 blade in place on the clipper. This is the blade that is used with animal guide combs. Some barbering professionals like to use this blade for fading and blending. The blade is close in size to a #1 blade. The difference is the #10 does not have the rills or fluting on its back side. Some hair cutters feel this creates smoother blending.

T-10 – This is a wide version of the #10 blade.

This is a popular animal size. There is little application for this blade in human hair cutting.

T-24 – The T-24 is a creative texturizing blade.

The comb blade is taken from a 1 ½ blade. It has wide and deep teeth and a thicker blade. The cutter has only 5 teeth. This blade removes 24% of the hair that feeds into the comb blade. This blade is used to create soft wispy shapes and broken texture. The T-24 creates a razor –cut like look that is ideal for removing weight, creating movement and producing highly mobile texture. The T-24 can be used as a powerful blending shear as well.

0A F/D – This is a “file down” (F/D) version of the 0A blade. It is used for off the scalp clipper cutting. Techniques like afro shaping and carving or freehand flat top cutting are easy to do with this blade. The teeth are

wide and deep. The cutter is set close to the edge of the comb blade. This unique configuration allows the blade to “touch cut”. That is to say that as soon as the leading edge of the blade touches the hair it is cut off. This instant cutting action prevents shifting or distortion of the hair. These characteristics make this blade superb for dry cutting of longer lengths and ladies hair.

18 – This texturizing blade is similar to the Andis T-24, but offered by Oster. The difference is that the 18 has 6 cutter teeth. It removes more hair then the 5 tooth Andis version.

Modified – This is Wahl’s version of the 0A F/D blade offered by Andis. There is a difference on the tooth size and depth and the front edge sharpness. The basic concept of the blade is the same.

Blade groupings These blade groupings will assist hair cutters in building blades sets or collections for specific types of clipper cutting work. Classis Barbering: 1, 1 ½, 2, 3 1/2 Military cutting: 00000, 0000, 000, 1, 1 1/2 Ethnic Fading: 00000, 0000, 000, 0A, 1A, 2 Long hair and ladies clipper cutting: 000, 0A F/D, T-24 Specialty blade pack: Outliner, 0A F/D, T-24 Buzz and Spike cutting: Outliner, 1, 1 ½, 3 3/4