Don Foreman wrote:

I need a way to cleanly shear 18-gage (.047") stainless sheet at a job
site. The width of the material will be about 4". Cuts will be
straight (not curved) but must be clean, square, straight edges.
Cosmetics is important so heat is out -- plasma, abrasive, etc. It
needs to be on-site for cut & fit so laser and waterjet are out. The
cut drop can be distorted, but the workpiece must remain flat and
undistorted.

I'm wondering if a Jet slitting shear would do this job well. Anybody
have any experience with these?
http://industrial.jettools.com/Produ...Cat&cat=333032

I have a Beverly B2. It shears the material easily but getting
dead-straight edges is a bit of a trick on a B2.

Other suggestions?

Do you have a plasma cutter? I wouldn't discount plasma without a quick
test, according the the reference chart in the manual for my Powermax
1000, on 16ga stainless the optimum travel speed is 406 IPM or nearly 7"
per second. At those speeds you're not going to get much of a heat
affected area at all. Used with a good guide strip I think you would
have a good chance of getting acceptable results.