Benchtop metal shear

Atlas Knife Company

Atlas Knife Company

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Feb 16, 2010
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I bought some 15N20 from JT, it comes in 6" x 13" pieces. I wanted to cut it to make damascus billets. I looked at a benchtop metal shear, but thought I might have issues with warpage. Can anyone confirm if the metal will warp when cut with one of these?
 
I don’t have one and have only been around one manual/bench top type shear before. It was used for much the same thing with thin 15N20. From what I can recall, the edges of the steel where it got sheared off had a bit of deformation/curl. It wasn’t terrible, but it was noticeable. Hope that helps at least a little.

Jeremy
 
I have used a big bench mount scissor shears for sheet metal work. The edge gets a little lip and the strip cut off has a slight curl. In Japan, they use a similar but heavier duty shear to nibble out blade blanks. I think the blacksmith suppliers sell these.

A straight shear ( brake) will cut cleaner and not curl. They are much bigger tools, though. The cheap smaller straight shears from places like HF seem to be weak and sloppy for anything but thin sheet metal. 22 gauge is all they will do well.

I have a small bench shear that is used to cut thin brass plates for engraving. It works OK, but is time consuming to try and cut any quantity with.

When I have a bunch of stuff that needs shearing, I take the mother sheet to a machine shop nearby and they charge me the shop's minimum charge ($50) to shear it all up. That way I get exact pieces and straight edges. They can shear 1/4" plate.
 
Thanks, Stacy, but I think that you are thinking of a different product. I'm talking about one of these, which HF doesn't sell.
12shearer-4.jpg
 
That type is what I called a scissors shear. The one I used made the cut off strip curl. Perhaps the shear edge was dull.

The ones that HF sells are a bit smaller than that one, and only good for thinner sheet metal..
 
Stacy, from the videos I've seen, it looks like the Japanese smiths are using a Beverly shear. The B3 model will cut up to 3/16 steel. Not cheap shears.
 
Indeed - not cheap - over a grand, IIRC.



I have two huge hardened D2 cutters from a paper mill. They used to shear reams of paper to exact size.

They are 36" long by 1" thick and 5" wide. The single bevel goes 3" up the side. There are 1/2" recessed bolt holes every 4" along the upper part.
I have thought of having them water-jet cut in half and building two pieces into the end of a work table to make a giant paper shear for cutting sandpaper and thinner sheet metal
And, taking the other two pieces and making a compound leverage style shear (somewhat like the Beverly). I think if I the water-jet guy cut one edge off so it was about 1/2" wide, I could grind that edge angled at 5 degrees as the cutter/shear ( might have the water-jet guy make this cut, too), and use the spine of the other piece as a flat surface for the shear edge. I think it would shear 1/8"-3/16" steel. With the pieces already pre-drilled, it should be simple to bolt up.
 
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