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?

If you have much of this to do, I would sure look into these. I
use the daylights out of mine.

http://www.kett-tool.com/webpages/tools/double%20cut%20shears/double%20cut%20shears.htm

--
______________________________
Keep the whole world singing . . . .
DanG (remove the sevens)




"Don Foreman" wrote in message
...
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?

Keywords:
In article , 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?

If you can find a Di-Acro 12" shear, I think you'd be all set. They will
handle 16 gauge steel, so I think 18 gauge stainless would be OK. 4"
might even work with one of the large corner notching shears.

One possible issue with the Jet shears is that the metal may tend to
squirm a bit, giving you a curved cut. You can fix this by rigging up
some sort of clamping system. You'd probably want to rig up a good right
angle fence anyway, and you could add a clamping set up to that.

Doug White

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.

Too bad the HF unit does not have the capacity, sure looks like the
ticket otherwise:
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=90757

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?

"Don Foreman" wrote in message
...
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?

I have a 16 ga nibbler made by Black & Decker that would do it.

On Fri, 04 Jan 2008 02:17:38 GMT, (Doug White)
wrote:

If you can find a Di-Acro 12" shear, I think you'd be all set. They will
handle 16 gauge steel, so I think 18 gauge stainless would be OK.

I thought so too but it doesn't seem to be so. This stuff is tough,
more like 12 gage mild steel. But I only need a 4" cut so a Di-Acro
12" might do the job if I can find one.

One possible issue with the Jet shears is that the metal may tend to
squirm a bit, giving you a curved cut. You can fix this by rigging up
some sort of clamping system. You'd probably want to rig up a good right
angle fence anyway, and you could add a clamping set up to that.

Yes.

I'll see if I can find a Jet to try tomorrow. I can modify it with an
over-center or cam-action clamping platen bar and angle fence if
necessary or expedient. It may well be so.

Don,

There's a nice Pexto four foot shear located about 75 miles west of you.
Fits easily in a trailer or pickup truck. Email me if you want it.

Karl

On Jan 4, 12:36*am, Don Foreman wrote:
On Fri, 04 Jan 2008 02:17:38 GMT, (Doug White)
wrote:

If you can find a Di-Acro 12" shear, I think you'd be all set. *They will
handle 16 gauge steel, so I think 18 gauge stainless would be OK.

I thought so too *but it doesn't seem to be so. *This stuff is tough,
more like 12 gage mild steel. *

If you look at capacity specs for most types of squaring shears,
you'll see that thickness capacity that is quoted for mild steel is
usually cut by 50% for use with stainless. As you have noted,
stainless is tough to cut, and gets worse rapidly with slight dulling
of the shear blade. The JET unit looks like a good bet, but if I were
doing it, I'd probably buy the heavier-duty unit (3/16" capacity).
Interesting that they state that the blade is made from stainless,
hardened and tempered. Check out the warranty specifically as well;
the manual has 1 year printed inside, but the website says 2 years...
I think the DiAcro 12" shear is nice, but it wouldn't do the job for
long. You'd end up breaking it trying to cut that stainless with the 7-
ft handle extension you'd need...:-)

On Jan 4, 10:23 am, "Karl Townsend"
wrote:
Don,

There's a nice Pexto four foot shear located about 75 miles west of you.
Fits easily in a trailer or pickup truck. Email me if you want it.

Karl


Mine's only 1200 lbs or so- stretches the definition of portable, but
yeah, they're somewhat movable.


Dave

On Jan 3, 9:17*pm, (Doug White) wrote:
...
One possible issue with the Jet shears is that the metal may tend to
squirm a bit, giving you a curved cut. *You can fix this by rigging up
some sort of clamping system. *You'd probably want to rig up a good right
angle fence anyway, and you could add a clamping set up to that.

Doug White

I've used the Enco version of the 8" shear on 1/8" mild steel and seen
the same problem. If you have one person heaving on the lever and
another one guiding the plate you might get a clean straight cut. The
curved-blade-side cutoff strip is strongly twisted and can force the
plate out of line if it hits anything. I'd plasma-cut about 1/2"
oversize, then shear.

You could bolt the shear to a plank at the edge of a pallet and put
another pallet on top beside it for a work surface level with the
blade.

Jim Wilkins

On Fri, 4 Jan 2008 09:15:05 -0800 (PST), matt
wrote:

On Jan 4, 12:36*am, Don Foreman wrote:
On Fri, 04 Jan 2008 02:17:38 GMT, (Doug White)
wrote:

If you can find a Di-Acro 12" shear, I think you'd be all set. *They will
handle 16 gauge steel, so I think 18 gauge stainless would be OK.

I thought so too *but it doesn't seem to be so. *This stuff is tough,
more like 12 gage mild steel. *

If you look at capacity specs for most types of squaring shears,
you'll see that thickness capacity that is quoted for mild steel is
usually cut by 50% for use with stainless.


At LEAST 50%. If asked to suggest/find a shear, I underate by 75%,
because I know they are not going to keep the blades sharp.

Gunner

On Fri, 4 Jan 2008 09:15:05 -0800 (PST), matt
wrote:

On Jan 4, 12:36*am, Don Foreman wrote:
On Fri, 04 Jan 2008 02:17:38 GMT, (Doug White)
wrote:

If you can find a Di-Acro 12" shear, I think you'd be all set. *They will
handle 16 gauge steel, so I think 18 gauge stainless would be OK.

I thought so too *but it doesn't seem to be so. *This stuff is tough,
more like 12 gage mild steel. *

If you look at capacity specs for most types of squaring shears,
you'll see that thickness capacity that is quoted for mild steel is
usually cut by 50% for use with stainless. As you have noted,
stainless is tough to cut, and gets worse rapidly with slight dulling
of the shear blade. The JET unit looks like a good bet, but if I were
doing it, I'd probably buy the heavier-duty unit (3/16" capacity).
Interesting that they state that the blade is made from stainless,
hardened and tempered. Check out the warranty specifically as well;
the manual has 1 year printed inside, but the website says 2 years...
I think the DiAcro 12" shear is nice, but it wouldn't do the job for
long. You'd end up breaking it trying to cut that stainless with the 7-
ft handle extension you'd need...:-)


One of our posters is one of the sharpest
guys I know about shearing, the machines themselves, and is a Jet and
Wilton dealer with a very very low markup.

Not only does he sell, but he runs a machine shop/fab shop with lots
of shears.

Gunner

On Fri, 4 Jan 2008 09:28:57 -0800 (PST), wrote:

On Jan 4, 10:23 am, "Karl Townsend"
wrote:
Don,

There's a nice Pexto four foot shear located about 75 miles west of you.
Fits easily in a trailer or pickup truck. Email me if you want it.

Karl


Mine's only 1200 lbs or so- stretches the definition of portable, but
yeah, they're somewhat movable.


Dave

Ive got an elderly 52" Pexto Id part with cheap. Needs some TLC.
Stomp shear converted to hydraulics.

Rated at 16ga mild steel however.

Bakersfield Ca.

On Fri, 4 Jan 2008 10:23:07 -0500, "Karl Townsend"
wrote:

Don,

There's a nice Pexto four foot shear located about 75 miles west of you.
Fits easily in a trailer or pickup truck. Email me if you want it.

Karl

Roger that!

On Fri, 04 Jan 2008 11:11:22 -0800, Gunner
wrote:

On Fri, 4 Jan 2008 09:15:05 -0800 (PST), matt
wrote:

On Jan 4, 12:36*am, Don Foreman wrote:
On Fri, 04 Jan 2008 02:17:38 GMT, (Doug White)
wrote:

If you can find a Di-Acro 12" shear, I think you'd be all set. *They will
handle 16 gauge steel, so I think 18 gauge stainless would be OK.

I thought so too *but it doesn't seem to be so. *This stuff is tough,
more like 12 gage mild steel. *

If you look at capacity specs for most types of squaring shears,
you'll see that thickness capacity that is quoted for mild steel is
usually cut by 50% for use with stainless.


At LEAST 50%. If asked to suggest/find a shear, I underate by 75%,
because I know they are not going to keep the blades sharp.

Gunner

That's kinda what I thought. I've located a nice little 12" Di-Acro
here in town, but rated only for 16 gage ms so I don't think it'll
hack it.

On Fri, 4 Jan 2008 10:49:35 -0800 (PST), Jim Wilkins
wrote:

On Jan 3, 9:17*pm, (Doug White) wrote:
...
One possible issue with the Jet shears is that the metal may tend to
squirm a bit, giving you a curved cut. *You can fix this by rigging up
some sort of clamping system. *You'd probably want to rig up a good right
angle fence anyway, and you could add a clamping set up to that.

Doug White

I think so too. If we go with the Jet I'd certainly consider making
both of these improvements.

I've used the Enco version of the 8" shear on 1/8" mild steel and seen
the same problem. If you have one person heaving on the lever and
another one guiding the plate you might get a clean straight cut. The
curved-blade-side cutoff strip is strongly twisted and can force the
plate out of line if it hits anything. I'd plasma-cut about 1/2"
oversize, then shear.

Rough cut then shear might be an excellent idea. My friend doesn't
have a plasma (and I'm not loaning mine out for a big job) but he
might be able to use a chopsaw -- or maybe even buy a small plasma for
the job. Even a cheap HF unit might suffice for a few hundred rough
cuts in .047" SS.

You could bolt the shear to a plank at the edge of a pallet and put
another pallet on top beside it for a work surface level with the
blade.

Right. He's good at contriving field-expedient work stations.

Jim Wilkins

On Fri, 04 Jan 2008 02:17:38 GMT, (Doug White)
wrote:



Other suggestions?

If you can find a Di-Acro 12" shear, I think you'd be all set. They will
handle 16 gauge steel, so I think 18 gauge stainless would be OK. 4"
might even work with one of the large corner notching shears.

We'll see! I located a 12" Di-Acro here in town today. Soon as I can
corral my friend we'll bring a sample piece to try it. The seller
said he'd be glad to let us do that. He thinks it'll do the job. I'm
not so sure but I'm sure willing to be shown.

On Thu, 03 Jan 2008 20:30:33 -0600, "Pete C."
wrote:


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.

"Acceptable" here means about perfect. Cosmetics are very important
in this job. If plasma were used, edge cleanup would definitely be
necessary. Not ruling anything out yet, but I think a shear has a
better chance of working well.

I'm thinking a decent 4 x 36 belt sander with a ceramic grit belt in
80 or 100 grit might be a very good thing to have at the jobside.
Those ceramic grit belts cut thin stainless like cheese and run very
cool. Edge cleanup and squaring to within .010" of the line might be
very quick and easy with one.

These guys are woodworkers, not metalworkers, so I'm trying to guide
them in a direction that will work for them. It's a fairly big job.
Jobbing it out would certainly be considered, but the cost would
probably be prohibitive even if we could find anyone that'd want the
job. Doing first-class work is priority 1 but they are definitely
trying to make a living.

Don Foreman wrote:
On Fri, 4 Jan 2008 10:49:35 -0800 (PST), Jim Wilkins
wrote:



Rough cut then shear might be an excellent idea. My friend doesn't
have a plasma (and I'm not loaning mine out for a big job) but he
might be able to use a chopsaw -- or maybe even buy a small plasma for
the job. Even a cheap HF unit might suffice for a few hundred rough
cuts in .047" SS.


Welcome to my world...

I've been chopping strips from .063 to .080.
Then cleaning up the burnt ragged with a flapper wheel.
Then filing the edges smooth and clean.

Save yourself!
Find another way!

Don - if the number of cuts to be made isn't high, you might look at one
of the 10 in. 'miter' saws with an abrasive disk. These typically require
some work holding means. Especally true to hold the sheet so the .047
dimension is being cut.

Hul

Don Foreman wrote:
On Thu, 03 Jan 2008 20:30:33 -0600, "Pete C."
wrote:


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.

"Acceptable" here means about perfect. Cosmetics are very important
in this job. If plasma were used, edge cleanup would definitely be
necessary. Not ruling anything out yet, but I think a shear has a
better chance of working well.

I'm thinking a decent 4 x 36 belt sander with a ceramic grit belt in
80 or 100 grit might be a very good thing to have at the jobside.
Those ceramic grit belts cut thin stainless like cheese and run very
cool. Edge cleanup and squaring to within .010" of the line might be
very quick and easy with one.

These guys are woodworkers, not metalworkers, so I'm trying to guide
them in a direction that will work for them. It's a fairly big job.
Jobbing it out would certainly be considered, but the cost would
probably be prohibitive even if we could find anyone that'd want the
job. Doing first-class work is priority 1 but they are definitely
trying to make a living.

On Jan 3, 8:14*pm, Don Foreman wrote:

Other suggestions? *

Well, if you want to have a finished edge in one operation, and you
don't mind getting crafty...

Build a very small/simple die with HSS lathe toolbits as the shearing
edges. Stick it under a shop press of some description, or rig up a
hydraulic cylinder.

HSS is tough, hard, and you don't have to heat-treat it. I'd likely
grind a chamfer so that the bits can be welded into the die shoe. I'd
also grind some shear ("V" ideally so it won't push your material to
one side) into the toolbit which comes in contact with the scrap (if
there is any scrap) as this will reduce your tonnage requirements (as
well as snap-through) drastically. Entry to exit height difference
should be one or two material thicknesses - any more and you're
wasting your time/grinding wheel.

You should also grind perhaps 1 or 2 degrees relief on to the front
(as opposed to top) faces of the tool bits so they don't get abraded
away by the stainless halfway through the cut. Not absolutely
necessary, but will help if you're doing a lot. Lube always helps!

If you leave some adjustability, you'll be able to control your
cutting clearance. This is crucial (as well as having sharp cutting
edges) to reducing your burr to an acceptable level while still being
able to close the die (tonnage) and not wrecking your edges (tool
life).

Unless you can use the contraption for something else after, you'd
likely lose ($$$ wise), but I guess there's some value in building a
tool that makes a tough job really easy.

Well, you were looking for "outside the box" ideas....

Regards,

Robin

On Fri, 4 Jan 2008 16:45:56 -0800 (PST), "Robin S."
wrote:

On Jan 3, 8:14*pm, Don Foreman wrote:

Other suggestions? *

Well, if you want to have a finished edge in one operation, and you
don't mind getting crafty...

Build a very small/simple die with HSS lathe toolbits as the shearing
edges. Stick it under a shop press of some description, or rig up a
hydraulic cylinder.

HSS is tough, hard, and you don't have to heat-treat it. I'd likely
grind a chamfer so that the bits can be welded into the die shoe. I'd
also grind some shear ("V" ideally so it won't push your material to
one side) into the toolbit which comes in contact with the scrap (if
there is any scrap) as this will reduce your tonnage requirements (as
well as snap-through) drastically.

I don't understand this part about the V.

wrote:

Don - if the number of cuts to be made isn't high, you might look at one
of the 10 in. 'miter' saws with an abrasive disk. These typically require
some work holding means. Especally true to hold the sheet so the .047
dimension is being cut.

Hul

An abrasive chop saw would certainly introduce heat discoloration to the
material, but that does bring up the idea of using a wet tile / block
saw with a suitable blade. If it's got continuous water cooling that
should prevent discoloration. Probably can't use the standard tile or
block blades, but a metal blade as typically used on the handheld gas
14" cutoff saws could probably be used.

On Thu, 03 Jan 2008 19:14:07 -0600, 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.

What about one of these:
http://www.jancy.com/index.cfm?fusea...roducti d=124

I've only cut heavier stock with the steel cutting blades in a
worm-drive skilsaw, but they do sell blades intended for cutting metal
studs and the like. Cut quality on plate is very good with minimal
burr. The saw above turns at a slower speed than a normal skilsaw or
chopsaw, which I imagine would be especially desirable when cutting
SS.

--
Ned Simmons

In article ,
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?

I have done a lot of stainless sheet installs in kitchens and
restaurants.
My favorite tool is a 0.045" cutoff wheel in a 4-1/2" right angle
grinder.
It cuts really fast, is pretty easy to run a straight line and doesn't
cause much of a heat affected zone.
You don't get any distortion, which you can't say about shears or plasma
cutters.
Metabo and Makita both make good thin cutting wheels.

You will get a bit of a burr on the bottom edge, but that can be quickly
removed using the edge of the wheel.

The more sheet metal I did, the less I used a plasma cutter.
The plasma cutter causes too much distortion and really nasty burrs on
the back side, on stainless steel.
On steel a plasma is great.

For zero distortion of sheet you can use a nibbler, but they are very
expensive if they can handle 18 ga stainless, plus it will really chew
up the cutters.

DanG wrote:

If you have much of this to do, I would sure look into these. I
use the daylights out of mine.

http://www.kett-tool.com/webpages/tools/double%20cut%20shears/double%20cut%20shears.htm


Have you used it on stainless that thick?


I have used a couple similar ones, both electric and air powered, on
aluminum, and they work well when sharp. I'd be interested in knowing
how they work on that thick stainless as well.

Cheers
Trevor Jones

On Thu, 3 Jan 2008 19:40:10 -0600, "DanG" wrote:

If you have much of this to do, I would sure look into these. I
use the daylights out of mine.

http://www.kett-tool.com/webpages/tools/double%20cut%20shears/double%20cut%20shears.htm

This looks very interesting, Dan. I see that the KD-440 is rated for
16 gage SS, so it should have no trouble with 18 gage. It might take
a bit of practice (and maybe a guide) to cut straight and square, but
a bit of cleanup with a belt sander is certainly possible too.

I've used double-cut hand nibblers that work this way. They do a nice
job on stock within their capacity -- which 18 gage SS certainly is
not.

I'll check this out some more. Thanks!

"Pete C." wrote in message
...
wrote:

Don - if the number of cuts to be made isn't high, you might look at one
of the 10 in. 'miter' saws with an abrasive disk. These typically require
some work holding means. Especally true to hold the sheet so the .047
dimension is being cut.

Hul

An abrasive chop saw would certainly introduce heat discoloration to the
material, but that does bring up the idea of using a wet tile / block
saw with a suitable blade. If it's got continuous water cooling that
should prevent discoloration. Probably can't use the standard tile or
block blades, but a metal blade as typically used on the handheld gas
14" cutoff saws could probably be used.


Depending on quantity of parts needed - call a local Water Jet cutting shop.
see what they would want for the job.

Wj's are cheap accurate and leave a nice edge

mark

On Jan 4, 9:40*pm, Don Foreman wrote:

HSS is tough, hard, and you don't have to heat-treat it. I'd likely
grind a chamfer so that the bits can be welded into the die shoe. I'd
also grind some shear ("V" ideally so it won't push your material to
one side) into the toolbit which comes in contact with the scrap (if
there is any scrap) as this will reduce your tonnage requirements (as
well as snap-through) drastically.

I don't understand this part about the V.

Well, if the entire length of both blades contacts the sheet metal at
the same time, you will require the highest tonnage to complete the
cut.

To reduce the tonnage, you can grind one of the blades at an angle
such that one end contacts the sheet metal first. As the blades
continue to cut, the actual cut line moves along the blades. Because
you've only got a limited length of the blades inside the material at
one time, your tonnage is reduced significantly. It's like using
regular scissors or shears. You're making the cut progressively as you
squeeze the scissors.

Making one blade angled is pretty easy on a grinder. The problem is
that this causes an imbalanced load. The moving members within the die
are stressed unequally, which causes uneven wear (not good). Also,
this tends to force the sheet metal to one side.

If you grind the blade as a "V" instead, you have a balanced load, and
the sheet metal is not forced to one side. The problem is that it's
more work to grind the V, and it will likely deform the cut-off
section such that it cannot be straightened.

Just something to keep in mind.

Regards,

Robin

Mark Dunning wrote:

"Pete C." wrote in message
...
wrote:

Don - if the number of cuts to be made isn't high, you might look at one
of the 10 in. 'miter' saws with an abrasive disk. These typically require
some work holding means. Especally true to hold the sheet so the .047
dimension is being cut.

Hul

An abrasive chop saw would certainly introduce heat discoloration to the
material, but that does bring up the idea of using a wet tile / block
saw with a suitable blade. If it's got continuous water cooling that
should prevent discoloration. Probably can't use the standard tile or
block blades, but a metal blade as typically used on the handheld gas
14" cutoff saws could probably be used.


Depending on quantity of parts needed - call a local Water Jet cutting shop.
see what they would want for the job.

Wj's are cheap accurate and leave a nice edge

mark

The OP said it had to be portable for site use, and last I saw, water
jet cutters were anything but portable.

Ernie Leimkuhler wrote:

In article ,
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?

I have done a lot of stainless sheet installs in kitchens and
restaurants.
My favorite tool is a 0.045" cutoff wheel in a 4-1/2" right angle
grinder.
It cuts really fast, is pretty easy to run a straight line and doesn't
cause much of a heat affected zone.
You don't get any distortion, which you can't say about shears or plasma
cutters.
Metabo and Makita both make good thin cutting wheels.

You will get a bit of a burr on the bottom edge, but that can be quickly
removed using the edge of the wheel.

That would seem to fit with my idea of using a tile cutting saw, like a
bridge type, with a suitable abrasive wheel for metal. The water cooling
should eliminate the HAZ entirely, and the convenient bridge design
should make it very fast to use for straight cuts.



The more sheet metal I did, the less I used a plasma cutter.
The plasma cutter causes too much distortion and really nasty burrs on
the back side, on stainless steel.
On steel a plasma is great.

For zero distortion of sheet you can use a nibbler, but they are very
expensive if they can handle 18 ga stainless, plus it will really chew
up the cutters.

On Sat, 5 Jan 2008 16:20:35 -0800 (PST), "Robin S."
wrote:

On Jan 4, 9:40*pm, Don Foreman wrote:

HSS is tough, hard, and you don't have to heat-treat it. I'd likely
grind a chamfer so that the bits can be welded into the die shoe. I'd
also grind some shear ("V" ideally so it won't push your material to
one side) into the toolbit which comes in contact with the scrap (if
there is any scrap) as this will reduce your tonnage requirements (as
well as snap-through) drastically.

I don't understand this part about the V.

Well, if the entire length of both blades contacts the sheet metal at
the same time, you will require the highest tonnage to complete the
cut.

To reduce the tonnage, you can grind one of the blades at an angle
such that one end contacts the sheet metal first. As the blades
continue to cut, the actual cut line moves along the blades. Because
you've only got a limited length of the blades inside the material at
one time, your tonnage is reduced significantly. It's like using
regular scissors or shears. You're making the cut progressively as you
squeeze the scissors.

Making one blade angled is pretty easy on a grinder. The problem is
that this causes an imbalanced load. The moving members within the die
are stressed unequally, which causes uneven wear (not good). Also,
this tends to force the sheet metal to one side.

If you grind the blade as a "V" instead, you have a balanced load, and
the sheet metal is not forced to one side. The problem is that it's
more work to grind the V, and it will likely deform the cut-off
section such that it cannot be straightened.

Just something to keep in mind.

Regards,

Robin

Gottit. Thanks! I think there are several other viable options for
this project, but I've little doubt that I will use your ideas
somewhere eventually.

Gunner wrote:
On Fri, 4 Jan 2008 09:15:05 -0800 (PST), matt
wrote:

On Jan 4, 12:36 am, Don Foreman wrote:
On Fri, 04 Jan 2008 02:17:38 GMT, (Doug White)
wrote:
If you can find a Di-Acro 12" shear, I think you'd be all set. They will
handle 16 gauge steel, so I think 18 gauge stainless would be OK.
I thought so too but it doesn't seem to be so. This stuff is tough,
more like 12 gage mild steel.
If you look at capacity specs for most types of squaring shears,
you'll see that thickness capacity that is quoted for mild steel is
usually cut by 50% for use with stainless.


At LEAST 50%. If asked to suggest/find a shear, I underate by 75%,
because I know they are not going to keep the blades sharp.

Gunner
I had some 1/8" S.Steel sheared to 1" wide strips---watched them do
it-great big ole 10 ft or 12ft shear---This stuff had been rolled so
hard, I tried to mill a small pc to 3/32" thickness---It curled up out
of the vise I was holding--it had so much internal stress in it.

I watched the blades of the press dull while they were shearing it--
you could see the different in the sheared edges from the 1st to the
last shear---about 10 pcs cut---The tensile strength was 113,000 psi.
Bearing strength @ deformation -138,000 psi !!