I purchased an 8" Plate Shear on e-bay for $99. Not having my expectations to high I was pleasantly surprised at how well it worked. This is going to be used for small general sheet metal work where my Tin Snips would struggle.
I looked at the E Bay ones but I just got lucky and bought an old one from a second hand shop for $130. Looking forward to playing with it and seeing what it can do.
We have the same shear at work, but it's branded unior tools, we us it to cut hardendshim stock it works well, but we changed the pivot bolt for a shoulder bolt it loosen up all the time, and also the weldings cracked after 2 years of use, we put two massive beads with stick welder and it's holding up to use and abuse.
Do you think this type shear will cut a steel belted tire tread? I can easily remove the sidewalls using a jig saw but it is extremely difficult trying to cut throught the remaining steel belted tread part of the tire. Ive tried an angle grinder and recipricating saw and both failed. Any help would be appreciated!!
Just wondering if you've used it a lot more how the blade is holding up. At that price I can't imagine it's a high quality tool steel blade. Thinking of getting one but just interested how it's held up over time. Cheers
G'Day Peter, I have used for cutting up quite a few sheet metal shims up to 2mm thick. I wouldn't say its had a lot of use but so far so good and it has made jobs like this so much easier to do. It would otherwise be a hacksaw job so for me, just in time its payed for itself. Yep, its not the greatest in quality but the next step up is 3-4 times the price and for the amount of times I use it I couldn't justify that extra cost. Cam
Your not wrong there Max. For $99 you can't really go wrong even if you had to do a little bit of re-working. The next price range up for the 8" Shears was almost $400. If you were in a production or manufacturing environment it would be worth it but for my little show I couldn't justify that sort of money. Cam
Could you shear a golf ball in half for me and report back on how clean the cutt was and ease of use? I have a sons art project coming up and I need to cutt alot of golf balls for him. I'd really appreciate it.
I don't think I would even try do to that due to the toxic fluid in the internal bladder (at least in the old golf balls I have cut open). I think the layers of rubber bands would shread as the action at that spread would be more crushing than shearing. I don't think the jaws would open far enough to get the ball in and if it did it would be at the very end where the fulcrum force is least. I think cutting with a course saw blade would be your only hope. I have cut them open in the past and it's not easy. Check out Google there are lots of other ideas. Cam
@@camatbattler2233 Yea, New golf ball construction is much different then those old golf balls. I seen milwaukee pvc shears slice thru new golf balls like butter ( no strings or bladder nowadays all synthetic dry solid compounds ) but I need a more precise cutt and a band saw with a fence is too dangerous for the amount of cutts i need to make. I was just wondering if that outer blade away from the vulcrum has enough leverage to make a clean cutt.
Hi Monica, I personally wouldn't use it to cut a spoon as they are made from harder stainless steel and these shears probably don't like point loads. There are probably better cutting methods to cut a spoon. Cam
12 gauge sheetmetal is the limit for these, heavier and you'll see the edge won't last long. it's not hardened tool steel, just ground 1018. these are jank; you have to tweak and fix up a lot with them to be usable. pivot bolt always comes loose and cracks will start in the weld beads if you use it regularly. if you can get the 8" for 99 shipped ok, but there's better options in the under-$150 level
I doubt it's 1018. That would be softer than some metal that it is suppose to cut. Most vendors say they use T10, which is a high carbon steel that can be heat treated to harden.
G'day Joe, it struggled with 10mm plain carbon steel bar. Rebar being a high tensile harder bar would certainly take the edge off the blades shear faces very quickly so I wouldn't recommend these cheap shears for rebar. Cam
G'Day Emma, what keen eyes you have. Long story, I'm doing a set of Patterns and Core Boxes for a 1/4 size fine scale 2HP Roseberry Hit and Miss Engine. I'm using my full size engine to measure off. A good mate of mine, Graham Johnson casts the Roseberry 1/4 scale look a likes but its fudged quite a bit to reduce the complexity and the number of the Core Boxes. There are a lot of these model engines around. Mine is proto-typical but there are numerous cores required hence the main body pattern is full of core prints. All the Patterns for this engine have been done on my CNC but I haven't started the big core boxes as yet. Graham runs his Foundry called the "Sea Lion Foundry". Both myself, Graham and "Luckygen 101" started foundry work around the same time and spent quite a lot of time at each others foundries helping out and learning. Anyway, its a project down the list when I get my foundry up and going again, and that means putting up another building behind my workshop to house all the gear. I gotta retire, too many projects and not enough time. Cam
