Memorial Day Sale

Today and tomorrow only, for every 5 tweezers you will get one free! Either buy on the website or email me at kjslivergripper@gmail.com and I will add the free tweezer(s). It will not show on the invoice upon purchase through the website, but I will automatically add the free tweezer weather you email me or not. Happy Memorial Day.

Time Off

From Thursday May 23 to Sunday May 26 I will be traveling for the first time in a long time. The website will remain up, but orders will not go out until Tuesday the 28th (as Monday the 27th the post office is closed for Memorial Day). Please know that I will ship any orders made between that time on Tuesday! Thanks for understanding.

Imitation Tweezers

I have been contacted about there being some imitation tweezers of the Sliver Grippers on Amazon. Please make sure that the manufacturer is El Mar or that the product is returnable if they don’t know. I hope this never happens to you. We are a small business and can’t stay on top of everything, but will try our best. Right now the operation is just me and my mom plus our manufacturer. We are lucky enough to to business from the USA all the way to Japan and New Zealand. Thank you to all the loyal customers. Have a nice weekend.

The Importance of Blogging

For years, marketing experts have emphasized the importance of blogging for digital success. But it’s 2019 now. Why is blogging important still and how should agencies and businesses make the most of their blogging resources? Check out this website. It explains what I have been talking about in my holiday newsletters regarding my own blog and why I keep it up. It is mainly for “crawling” to the site since we are a small family business, so I appreciate the people who have written me about some of the things I have posted the past. It is hard to write a blog and come up with someone new each week. Health is important to me which is why I try to incorporate health topics when I can. If you have your own blog this site gives a lot of helpful tips too!

https://www.verblio.com/blog/importance-of-blogging

April Fools

Last Monday marked the day that pranksters come out to play! How did you start your week off? Want to learn more about the history of the spirited holiday?

April Fools' Day or April Fool's Day (sometimes called All Fools' Day) is an annual celebration commemorated on April 1st by playing practical jokes and spreading hoaxes. The jokes and their victims are called April fools. People playing April Fool jokes often expose their prank by shouting "April fool(s)" at the unfortunate victim(s). Some newspapers, magazines and other published media report fake stories, which are usually explained the next day or below the news section in smaller letters. Although popular since the 19th century, the day is not a public holiday in any country.

Aside from April Fools' Day, the custom of setting aside a day for the playing of harmless pranks upon one's neighbor has historically been relatively common in the world. To learn more, check out this site: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools%27_Day

11 Other Ways to Use Tweezers

We all know they're great for plucking hairs, deboning fish, and removing ticks from pets. However, there are plenty of other reasons to have a second pair of tweezers in your purse, house, or office. This handy tool is for more than just your brows.

1. Remove cracked eggshells when cooking.
We've all been there: You're whipping up the perfect omelet and bam, broken shells fall into the bowl. For emergencies just like this, keep a clean set on deck. The best part? They're dishwasher safe.

2. Grab crumbs from under stove burners.
Not only is it safer than using your fingers (ouch!), it keeps your kitchen smoke-free.

3. Tighten loose screws on your glasses.
Don't have a miniature screwdriver on hand? Use a pointed version to fix your glasses instead.

4. Apply false eyelashes.
You'll avoid sticky fingers from the glue, and get a more precise application.

5. Design a fancy manicure.
Ready to up your nail art game? Use a pair to decorate your tips with rhinestones, striping tape, or studs. You can use the same technique for adding small beads to your crafts, or stickers to your scrapbooks, too.

6. Pluck pesky animal hairs off sweaters and coats.
Unfortunately that lint roller doesn't always get every last strand.

7. Take out splinters, thorns, and more.
Consider them an important staple for any at-home first aid kit. Just find a pair with a fine, pointed tip and short, wide handles for an extra firm grip.

8. Thread a needle.
They're really convenient when you have to pull a tricky thread through a needle's eye.

9. Help kids improve fine motor skills.
Using them will help increase your little one's hand and finger strength, shoulder and elbow stability, and grasping techniques. We especially love the project blogger and mom-of-four Pauline (Lessons Learnt Journal) recently shared where her children used tweezers to pick up chickpeas and lentils, and drop them on paper to create a tiger picture.

10. Untangle necklaces.
Sometimes delicate chains are too small to untwist with hands alone. Tweezers can really help.

11. Pull hair and more from the shower drain.
Phew! No more touching that mystery gunk stuck deep inside.

Stainless Steel: The Manufacturing Process

The Sliver Grippers are 100% USA and man made steel. The manufacturing of stainless steel involves a series of processes. First, the steel is melted, and then it is cast into solid form. After various forming steps, the steel is heat treated and then cleaned and polished to give it the desired finish. Next, it is packaged and sent to manufacturers, who weld and join the steel to produce the desired shapes.

Melting and casting

The raw materials are first melted together in an electric furnace. This step usually requires 8 to 12 hours of intense heat. When the melting is finished, the molten steel is cast into semi-finished forms. These include blooms (rectangular shapes), billets (round or square shapes 1.5 inches or 3.8 centimeters in thickness), slabs, rods, and tube rounds.

Forming

Next, the semi-finished steel goes through forming operations, beginning with hot rolling, in which the steel is heated and passed through huge rolls. Blooms and billets are formed into bar and wire, while slabs are formed into plate, strip, and sheet. Bars are available in all grades and come in rounds, squares, octagons, or hexagons 0.25 inch (.63 centimeter) in size. Wire is usually available up to 0.5 inch (1.27 centimeters) in diameter or size. Plate is more than 0.1875 inch (.47 centimeter) thick and over 10 inches (25.4 centimeters) wide. Strip is less than 0.185 inch (.47 centimeter) thick and less than 24 inches (61 centimeters) wide. Sheet is less than 0.1875 (.47 centimeter) thick and more than 24 (61 centimeters) wide.

Heat treatment

After the stainless steel is formed, most types must go through an annealing step. Annealing is a heat treatment in which the steel is heated and cooled under controlled conditions to relieve internal stresses and soften the metal. Some steels are heat treated for higher strength. However, such a heat treatment—also known as age hardening —requires careful control, for even small changes from the recommended temperature, time, or cooling rate can seriously affect the properties. Lower aging temperatures produce high strength with low fracture toughness, while higher-temperature aging produces a lower strength, tougher material.

Though the heating rate to reach the aging temperature (900 to 1000 degrees Fahrenheit or 482 to 537 degrees Celsius) does not effect the properties, the cooling rate does. A post-aging quenching (rapid cooling) treatment can increase the toughness without a significant loss in strength. One such process involves water quenching the material in a 35-degree Fahrenheit (1.6-degree Celsius) ice-water bath for a minimum of two hours.

The type of heat treatment depends on the type of steel; in other words, whether it is austenitic, ferritic, or martensitic. Austenitic steels are heated to above 1900 degrees Fahrenheit (1037 degrees Celsius) for a time depending on the thickness. Water quenching is used for thick sections, whereas air cooling or air blasting is used for thin sections. If cooled too slowly, carbide precipitation can occur. This buildup can be eliminated by thermal stabilization. In this method, the steel is held for several hours at 1500 to 1600 degrees Fahrenheit (815 to 871 degrees Celsius). Cleaning part surfaces of contaminants before heat treatment is sometimes also necessary to achieve proper heat treatment.

Descaling

Annealing causes a scale or build-up to form on the steel. The scale can be removed using several processes. One of the most common methods, pickling, uses a nitric-hydrofluoric acid bath to descale the steel. In another method, electrocleaning, an electric current is applied to the surface using a cathode and phosphoric acid, and the scale is removed. The annealing and descaling steps occur at different stages depending on the type of steel being worked. Bar and wire, for instance, go through further forming steps (more hot rolling, forging, or extruding) after the initial hot rolling before being annealed and descaled. Sheet and strip, on the other hand, go through an initial annealing and descaling step immediately after hot rolling. After cold rolling (passing through rolls at a relatively low temperature), which produces a further reduction in thickness, sheet and strip are annealed and descaled again. A final cold rolling step then prepares the steel for final processing.

Cutting

Cutting operations are usually necessary to obtain the desired blank shape or size to trim the part to final size. Mechanical cutting is accomplished by a variety of methods, including straight shearing using guillotine knives, circle shearing using circular knives horizontally and vertically positioned, sawing using high speed steel blades, blanking, and nibbling. Blanking uses metal punches and dies to punch out the shape by shearing. Nibbling is a process of cutting by blanking out a series of overlapping holes and is ideally suited for irregular shapes.

Stainless steel can also be cut using flame cutting, which involves a flame-fired torch using oxygen and propane in conjunction with iron powder. This method is clean and fast. Another cutting method is known as plasma jet cutting, in which an ionized gas column in conjunction with an electric arc through a small orifice makes the cut. The gas produces extremely high temperatures to melt the metal.

Finishing

Surface finish is an important specification for stainless steel products and is critical in applications where appearance is also important. Certain surface finishes also make stainless steel easier to clean, which is obviously important for sanitary applications. A smooth surface as obtained by polishing also provides better corrosion resistance. On the other hand, rough finishes are often required for lubrication applications, as well as to facilitate further manufacturing steps.

Surface finishes are the result of processes used in fabricating the various forms or are the result of further processing. There are a variety of methods used for finishing. A dull finish is produced by hot rolling, annealing, and descaling. A bright finish is obtained by first hot rolling and then cold rolling on polished rolls. A highly reflective finish is produced by cold rolling in combination with annealing in a controlled atmosphere furnace, by grinding with abrasives, or by buffing a finely ground surface. A mirror finish is produced by polishing with progressively finer abrasives, followed by extensive buffing. For grinding or polishing, grinding wheels or abrasive belts are normally used. Buffing uses cloth wheels in combination with cutting compounds containing very fine abrasive particles in bar or stick forms. Other finishing methods include tumbling, which forces

The initial steel shapes—blooms, billets, slabs, etc.—are hot rolled into bar, wire, sheet, strip, and plate. Depending on the form, the steel then undergoes further rolling steps (both hot and cold rolling), heat treatment (annealing), descaling Ito remove buildup), and polishing to produce the finished stainless steel. The steel is then sent the end user.

movement of a tumbling material against surfaces of parts, dry etching (sandblasting), wet etching using acid solutions, and surface dulling. The latter uses sandblasting, wire brushing, or pickling techniques.


Read more: http://www.madehow.com/Volume-1/Stainless-Steel.html#ixzz5j7JYU1d8

Tweezer Tooth

Meant for one use. Also known as toothed forceps and skin forceps. They have interlocking teeth for a better grip on slippery/flimsy materials during any surgical incision procedure. Never seen one before, so I thought I would share.

tweezer-tooth-500x500.jpg


Daylight Savings Time

It’s Daylight Savings time for the US, but not everywhere in the world (or even the USA for that matter). Keeping in the theme of history lately. Read the interesting facts about Daylight Savings:

Who Started Daylight Saving Time?

The idea of resetting clocks forward an hour in the spring and back an hour in the fall was first suggested by Benjamin Franklin in his essay "An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light," which was published in the Journal de Paris in April 1784.

Franklin's suggestion was largely overlooked until it was brought up again in 1907 by Englishman William Willett, who penned a pamphlet called "The Waste of Daylight." Although the British House of Commons rejected Willett's proposal to advance the clock one hour in the spring and back again in autumn in 1908, British Summer Time was introduced by the Parliament in 1916.

Many other countries change their clocks when adjusting to summer time, but the United States only began doing so towards the end of World War I in an attempt to conserve energy. The House of Representatives voted 252 to 40 to pass a law "to save daylight," with the official first daylight saving time taking place on March 15, 1918. This was initially met with much resistance, according Michael Downing, author of the book "Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time."

"When the Congress poked its finger into the face of every clock in the country, millions of Americans winced," Downing wrote. "United by a determination to beat back the big hand of government," daylight saving time opponents  "raised holy hell, vowing to return the nation to real time, normal time, farm time, sun time—the time they liked to think of as "God's time.'"

Despite the public outcry, government officials enforced the time change until 1919, and allowed state and local governments to decide whether to continue the practice. It was reinstituted during World War II but, again, after the war the decision fell to the states.

In fact, even when Congress officially made the time change a law under the Uniform Time Act of 1966, it only stated that if the public decided to observe daylight saving time, it must do so uniformly. Hawaii and Arizona (with the exception of the Navajo Reservation), still choose not to partake in the convention, as do some U.S. territories, including American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

Originally, clocks were sprung forward on the last Sunday in April and turned back on the last Sunday in October, but the Energy Policy Act of 2005 shifted the start of daylight saving time to the second Sunday in March and the end to the first Sunday in November.

Happy March-Women's History Month

It’s Women's History Month. Check out why and enjoy the links if you want to learn more!

Women's History Month is an annual declared month that highlights the contributions of women to events in history and contemporary society. It is celebrated during March in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, corresponding with International Women's Day on March 8, and during October in Canada, corresponding with the celebration of Persons Day on October 18.

History

In the United States

Women's History Month reception in the East Room of the White House on 18 March 2013.

See also: History of women in the United States and Gerda Lerner

Women's History Week

In the United States, Women's History Month traces its beginnings back to the first International Women's Day in 1911. In 1978, the school district of Sonoma, California participated in Women's History Week, an event designed around the week of March 8 (International Women's Day). In 1979 a fifteen-day conference about women's history was held at Sarah Lawrence College from July 13 until July 29, chaired by historian Gerda Lerner. It was co-sponsored by Sarah Lawrence College, the Women's Action Alliance, and the Smithsonian Institution. When its participants learned about the success of the Sonoma County's Women's History Week celebration, they decided to initiate similar celebrations within their own organizations, communities, and school districts. They also agreed to support an effort to secure a National Women's History Week.

In February 1980, President Jimmy Carter issued a presidential proclamation declaring the week of March 8, 1980, as National Women's History Week. The proclamation stated, "From the first settlers who came to our shores, from the first American Indian families who befriended them, men and women have worked together to build this nation. Too often the women were unsung and sometimes their contributions went unnoticed. But the achievements, leadership, courage, strength and love of the women who built America was as vital as that of the men whose names we know so well. As Dr. Gerda Lerner has noted, 'Women’s History is Women’s Right.' It is an essential and indispensable heritage from which we can draw pride, comfort, courage, and long-range vision. I ask my fellow Americans to recognize this heritage with appropriate activities during National Women’s History Week, March 2–8, 1980. I urge libraries, schools, and community organizations to focus their observances on the leaders who struggled for equality –Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, Lucy Stone, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriet Tubman, and Alice Paul. Understanding the true history of our country will help us to comprehend the need for full equality under the law for all our people. This goal can be achieved by ratifying the 27th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which states that 'Equality of Rights under the Law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.'" Carter was referring to the Equal Rights Amendment, which was never ratified, not to the amendment which did become the 27th Amendment to the United States Constitution after his presidency.

In 1981, responding to the growing popularity of Women's History Week, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Rep Barbara Mikulski (D-Maryland) co-sponsored the first Joint Congressional Resolution proclaiming a Women's History Week. Congress passed their resolution as Pub. L. 97-28, which authorized and requested the President to proclaim the week beginning March 7, 1982 as “Women’s History Week." Throughout the next several years, Congress continued to pass joint resolutions designating a week in March as Women’s History Week. Schools across the country also began to have their own local celebrations of Women's History Week and even Women's History Month. By 1986, fourteen states had declared March as Women's History Month.

Women's History Month

In 1987, after being petitioned by the National Women's History Project, Congress passed Pub. L. 100-9 which designated the month of March 1987 as Women’s History Month.[4] Between 1988 and 1994, Congress passed additional resolutions requesting and authorizing the President to proclaim March of each year as Women’s History Month.[4] Since 1988, U.S. presidents have issued annual proclamations designating the month of March as Women’s History Month.

State departments of education also began to encourage celebrations of Women's History Month as a way to promote equality among the sexes in the classroom.[4] Maryland, Pennsylvania, Alaska, New York, Oregon, and other states developed and distributed curriculum materials in all of their public schools, which prompted educational events such as essay contests. Within a few years, thousands of schools and communities began to celebrate of Women's History Month. They planned engaging and stimulating programs about women's roles in history and society, with support and encouragement from governors, city councils, school boards, and the U.S. Congress.

In March 2011, the Obama administration released a report, Women in America: Indicators of Social and Economic Well-Being, showing women's status in the U.S. in 2011 and how it had changed over time. This report was the first comprehensive federal report on women since the report produced by the Commission on the Status of Women in 1963.

Some organizations have issued statements marking Women's History Month, for example the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee.

A President's Commission on the Celebration of Women in History in America recently sponsored hearings in many parts of the country. The Women's Progress Commission will soon conduct hearings to promote interest in preserving areas that are relevant in American women's history. Some of the groups promoting this interest are state historical societies, women's organizations, and groups such as the Girl Scouts of the USA.

Late Vday History

Another holiday down this year. Keeping in the theme of history this month I thought that I would post about the history of Valentine’s Day. It goes way back and wasn’t always the prettiest of pictures… read on!

Valentine's Day is a time to celebrate romance and love and kissy-face fealty. But the origins of this festival of candy and cupids are actually dark, bloody — and a bit muddled.

A drawing depicts the death of St. Valentine — one of them, anyway. The Romans executed two men by that name on Feb. 14 of different years in the 3rd century A.D.

Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Though no one has pinpointed the exact origin of the holiday, one good place to start is ancient Rome, where men hit on women by, well, hitting them.

Those Wild And Crazy Romans

From Feb. 13 to 15, the Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia. The men sacrificed a goat and a dog, then whipped women with the hides of the animals they had just slain.

The Roman romantics "were drunk. They were naked," says Noel Lenski, a historian at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Young women would actually line up for the men to hit them, Lenski says. They believed this would make them fertile.

The brutal fete included a matchmaking lottery, in which young men drew the names of women from a jar. The couple would then be, um, coupled up for the duration of the festival — or longer, if the match was right.

The ancient Romans may also be responsible for the name of our modern day of love. Emperor Claudius II executed two men — both named Valentine — on Feb. 14 of different years in the 3rd century A.D. Their martyrdom was honored by the Catholic Church with the celebration of St. Valentine's Day.

Later, Pope Gelasius I muddled things in the 5th century by combining St. Valentine's Day with Lupercalia to expel the pagan rituals. But the festival was more of a theatrical interpretation of what it had once been. Lenski adds, "It was a little more of a drunken revel, but the Christians put clothes back on it. That didn't stop it from being a day of fertility and love."

Around the same time, the Normans celebrated Galatin's Day. Galatin meant "lover of women." That was likely confused with St. Valentine's Day at some point, in part because they sound alike.

William Shakespeare helped romanticize Valentine's Day in his work, and it gained popularity throughout Britain and the rest of Europe.

Perry-Castañeda Library, University of Texas

Shakespeare In Love

As the years went on, the holiday grew sweeter. Chaucer and Shakespeare romanticized it in their work, and it gained popularity throughout Britain and the rest of Europe. Handmade paper cards became the tokens-du-jour in the Middle Ages.

Eventually, the tradition made its way to the New World. The industrial revolution ushered in factory-made cards in the 19th century. And in 1913, Hallmark Cards of Kansas City, Mo., began mass producing valentines. February has not been the same since.

Today, the holiday is big business: According to market research firm IBIS World, Valentine's Day sales reached $17.6 billion last year; this year's sales are expected to total $18.6 billion.

But that commercialization has spoiled the day for many. Helen Fisher, a sociologist at Rutgers University, says we have only ourselves to blame.

"This isn't a command performance," she says. "If people didn't want to buy Hallmark cards, they would not be bought, and Hallmark would go out of business."

And so the celebration of Valentine's Day goes on, in varied ways. Many will break the bank buying jewelry and flowers for their beloveds. Others will celebrate in a SAD (that's Single Awareness Day) way, dining alone and binging on self-gifted chocolates. A few may even be spending this day the same way the early Romans did. But let's not go there!

Black History Month

Can you believe it is already February again? February is Black History Month. I found this interesting article as to why this year’s Black History Month is pivotal. Take a look.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/09/opinions/black-history-month-jamestown-400th-anniversary-joseph/index.html

Blogging

Blogging is an interesting thing. I started doing this blog because it was needed to “crawl” to my site. We are a small family business, so most of our customers come by word of mouth rather than paying a bunch of money for adds. Since this site is the sister company selling to individuals while our main company sells to big businesses I wanted to make sure that it was up there in the google search. I don’t always write about tweezers, yet still get emails about my blog. Thank you for reading even when it is a quick note to help the site!

Ski Week

Ski week is coming up. Even in snowy conditions tweezers can be very helpful. When something sticks together tweezers can be a savor! It can even be used in cooking! Grab a pair today.

New Year

Simple yet sweet: It’s a new year and the time of new goals, plans, wishes and resolutions. I hope everyone gets the best out of this year whatever it is they want or need, how big or how small. Good luck to us all this year!

Last Minute Sale

The holiday sale is almost over, but for the next few days I’m offering a bonus sale. A free tweezer with orders below 5 as well. To get the free tweezer on a lower purchase email me at kjslivergripper@gmail.com and tell me you would like the free tweezer. I can either send you a PayPal invoice or you can order online and I will make sure you get the free tweezer! The holiday special ends on the 13th. Every five tweezers bought, you get one for free! Upon checkout the free tweezer WILL NOT SHOW, but worry not! The extra tweezer(s) will be shown on the invoice in the packaging and in the package! There is also a bonus for orders over 20. That would normally be four free tweezers, but for every 20 I will add an extra two into that order. So if you order twenty, you will receive 26. If you order 40, you will receive 52 and so on!

Happy Holidays!

HOLIDAY SPECIAL – Ends January 13th

One more week to take advantage of the holiday special. Get your tweezers while you can! Every five tweezers bought, you get one for free! Upon checkout the free tweezer WILL NOT SHOW, but worry not! The extra tweezer(s) will be shown on the invoice in the packaging and in the package!

There is also a bonus for orders over 20. That would normally be four free tweezers, but for every 20 I will add an extra two into that order. So if you order twenty, you will receive 26. If you order 40, you will receive 52 and so on!

Happy Holidays!