First shears?

[Splatterer]

Hi,
Thinking I need to cut steel up.
Am totally confused as to what all the different tools mentioned in all the cutting threads actually do.
Can anyone point me to a thread/ site(s) that shows what cuts what and what the end result looks like, please.

Also, I see air shears appear much cheaper than electric shears, manual shears look really quiet. JCB Snips seem to leave a horrible edge.
Nibblers would probably kill the dogs paws and floors.

So, if I wanted one good quality tool to start off with, what would it be?
Thanks.

 

[Badger1bear]

have you tried a search on youtube Ade ? you can see things first hand and decide what would work for you

 

[astro_al]

Work the other way - what do you want to cut?

Al.

 

[Badger1bear]

Work the other way - what do you want to cut?

Al.

drinking to much John Smiths would be a start Al

 

[DuncanM]

I'm also thinking about getting a bench shear. It will be for cutting steel sheet to make repair panels for my Lancia Beta. 1.2mm to start with, but maybe thicker for inner sills and thinner for body panels. I'm struggling to cut the 1.2mm sheet I have with my Gilbow snips - an old thumb injury means it's really difficult. Can you cut steel sheet quickly, efficiently, and accurately with something like this?
http://www.machinemart.co.uk/shop/product/details/cps75-mini-sheet-metal-cutter
Apologies for the thread hijack, but hopefully answers to this will also help answer your questions! :-)
Cheers Duncan

 

[Paul.]

I'm also thinking about getting a bench shear. It will be for cutting steel sheet to make repair panels for my Lancia Beta. 1.2mm to start with, but maybe thicker for inner sills and thinner for body panels. I'm struggling to cut the 1.2mm sheet I have with my Gilbow snips - an old thumb injury means it's really difficult. Can you cut steel sheet quickly, efficiently, and accurately with something like this?
http://www.machinemart.co.uk/shop/product/details/cps75-mini-sheet-metal-cutter
Apologies for the thread hijack, but hopefully answers to this will also help answer your questions! :-)
Cheers Duncan

I have the sykes pickavant version of that tool, they are quite common in bodyshops, they are ok for final trimming to size and cutting curves, the main problem with them is the way that the material under the right hand roller is distorted, fine if its an off cut but not much use if you want to use both pieces.

 

[Wallace]

A bench shear will also give a similar cut to the tool in TIG Paul's post. I have a Gabro Notcher, looks like a bench shear but takes a slice out of the material leaving both parts undistorted similar to a nibbler.


Straight cut


Notching

 

[oddbob]

I cut sheet material up to about 1.5mm fairly regularly, to which end I have a fair bit of kit for the job, including a Mubea plate shear, Hitachi nibbler and other bits and pieces. But the thing I find most versatile, and use the most, is one of these... thoatless shear (although mines a different make). They'll make straight or curved cuts of any length with very little distortion. I certainly would start with one of these.

 

[oddbob]

^having said all that, if you can afford it (and have space for it) go for the Gabro!

 

[DuncanM]

That Gabro thing looks awesome, but space is tight and there don't seem to be many around secondhand, so I doubt that's an option. Are you able to do everything a bench shear can do with a throatless shear (with the benefit of not deforming the rhs of the piece)? If so, I may have to get one of them despite the extra cost.
Thanks Duncan

 

[Wallace]

The gabro notchers do come up from time to time, there's an older one on Ebay at the moment and one was on here a while back. As they resemble a bench shear at first glance I think people overlook them. I really wanted a guillotine and due to the lack of space went for a 3 in 1 shear/slip roll/brake press machine which turned out to be so badly made it went back. As an alternative I ended up with the Gabro Notcher, a 600mm Gabro Bender and a cheap set of 12" vice mount slip rolls. As I am not doing production work I can live with the material wastage from the notcher for straight cuts.

 

[secretsmoker]

I was looking at these sorts of thing but decided on the pikey option instead and just used the hand grinder so far to cut costs. Would not recommend this approach though as it adds a lot of time cleaning up edges etc.

Definitely should have bought one of those bench shear thingys when I could afford one looking at the results in the pic!

 

[oddbob]

That Gabro thing looks awesome, but space is tight and there don't seem to be many around secondhand, so I doubt that's an option. Are you able to do everything a bench shear can do with a throatless shear (with the benefit of not deforming the rhs of the piece)? If so, I may have to get one of them despite the extra cost.
Thanks Duncan

The only thing you're limited with compared to a 'standard' shear is the thickness of material you can cut ...I haven't seen a throatless with a capacity of over 2mm.

 

[DuncanM]

I'm seriously tempted by this now!
http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=39818
More versatile than a bench shear (and more expensive). Will have to see it in action, but... ;-)

 

[Splatterer]

Shush about the Gabro nothcher on e- bay in Crewe!
No one else has found it yet
I also like the electric shears idea, too.

Do the 3.2mm shears cut thin stuff equally well? Or is it a case of thin shears for thin stuff and big shears for thick stuff? http://http://www.tool-net.co.uk/p-317657/makita-js3200.html?gclid=CNee-ODExbYCFYjLtAodIWsAtQ
Was considering these...

 

[Wallace]

A material rating of 3.2mm would normally mean up to that thickness and state what material type.

 

[hotrodder]

The Gabro type (3 bladed design/slitting shears) are available as hand snips (google Monodex cutter), air powered and leccy. As said ~2mm mild steel is about as heavy as they go and they generally suck at cutting curves unless very large radius... Fein and Trumpf both do slitting shears that are the dogs cojones- a chip breaker for ending a partial/notched cut neatly* and they cope with radiused cuts better too. Sit down before looking up the price

'Conventional' 2 bladed designs can do smaller radii (not as small as nibblers though), can be hand, air or leccy powered. As said throatless design copes with curves well/ better than bench shears but don't have the same capacity typically... The 'real' Beverly shear is available in 3 sizes the largest of which handles 3/16 mild or 10swg stainless. Again need to be sitting down before pricing 'em, AFAIK the afordable knock offs only exist as a copy of the smaller B1 (linked to by Oddbob). The blades are made of chocolate compared to the real thing which really are made to last a lifetime or 2
The amount of distortion to the waste side depends some on the size of the waste piece- they only really curl things when trimming, distortion is much less when cutting something out of a full sheet but not distortion free like the slitting shear type

Decent quality snips are a WORLD apart from the £9.99 for a set of three tat. Of those left (most have been cheapnesed including my favorite ProSnip which are now Irwin) Midwest are my favorite followed by Wiss which aren't what they used to be IMO. Aviation snips are for trimming acurately only really- if the waste side is too big they're hard work, ~1/4" is ideal in that too thin and the waste curls up in a way that often blocks view of the cut line

* with the cheaper air or leccy designs like the Makita js1660 stopping a cut part way through the sheet leaves the shear tangled up in it's own waste unless you drill a hole first and cut to that

 

[Keith 66]

I have a Gabro notcher, ex college, fine machine & highly useful. Once upon a time every school & college workshop had one of these & main use was for cutting piles of identical bits for pupils & students. Wastage isnt an issue in such establishments in fact they are artists at it.
They often come up for sale at engineering suppliers that clear schools.
Best bit about mine was I got it when they closed our workshop. 6 months later they reopened it at another location in the college. Head of department wanted a guillotine, I offered to sell it back to them, he declined saying £150 was too expensive. So he bought a guillotine from machine mart. I installed it & the very first time it was used the main frame cracked in half. I was quite amused!

 

[slim_boy_fat]

They often come up for sale at engineering suppliers that clear schools.

Like so