What's new
What's new

Would like some advice on purchasing a used shear.

jeff76

Cast Iron
Joined
Jan 21, 2009
Location
Ohio USA
I'm thinking that I would like to purchase a shear. The main use would be to shear between 16 and 20 gauge steel sheet up to 48" wide and possibly some aluminum in that range or slightly thicker. I'm thinking a simple stomp shear would probably suffice.
That being said, the ability to shear up to 1/8, 3/16 or even 1/4" would really be useful at times as well. A 1/4" capacity with a width capacity of 4,6 or 8 feet would probably be about the max I would consider but I have a few questions in regard to one of that size. First would be my floor as a shear this size can be heavy. Would something this size require some sort of foundation? My floor is 5" thick 6.5 bag mix concrete with wire. I do not want to have to break out any floor and redo anything for whatever shear I decide to go with. Any thoughts on this matter?
I am also somewhat limited on the electric end as well so the max. HP I could run would be in the 7.5 or possibly 10 HP range.
I have little knowledge about metal shears so any advice or recommendations as to things to consider or machines to avoid and so forth would be greatly appreciated.

Jeff
 
With limited electricity I would be looking at mechanical machines, they have a flywheel to do most of the work. On the other hand that might be harder on your floor. Set the machine on steel plates to spread the load if need be.
 
The machine that cuts 1/4" will simply fold the 20ga in most situations, I would think 1/8 and down could be one machine and another for 1/8 and above. I think your floor is OK
My 4' shear is good from 1/8 down and is 1.5hp
 
Now days, for the floor space required, the limited ability of a shear, etc. Going with a cnc plasma cutter makes much more sense.
Not only can a plasma make straight cuts like a shear, it can cut any shape, include bolt holes that eliminate drilling or punching, etc. One youtuber I watch, says since he got his 4x4 CNC plasma, he hardly ever uses his drill press anymore. I wanted a shear myself until the possibilities of the plasma made it a no brainer which machine to choose.
 
Now days, for the floor space required, the limited ability of a shear, etc. Going with a cnc plasma cutter makes much more sense.
Not only can a plasma make straight cuts like a shear, it can cut any shape, include bolt holes that eliminate drilling or punching, etc. One youtuber I watch, says since he got his 4x4 CNC plasma, he hardly ever uses his drill press anymore. I wanted a shear myself until the possibilities of the plasma made it a no brainer which machine to choose.

So many tools, so little time
 
Now days, for the floor space required, the limited ability of a shear, etc. Going with a cnc plasma cutter makes much more sense.
Not only can a plasma make straight cuts like a shear, it can cut any shape, include bolt holes that eliminate drilling or punching, etc. One youtuber I watch, says since he got his 4x4 CNC plasma, he hardly ever uses his drill press anymore. I wanted a shear myself until the possibilities of the plasma made it a no brainer which machine to choose.

"Let the machine doo the work"

Unless the OP is simply shearing and welding the flat plates (or bent on a brake) with no
further processing like holes and notches.
 
Unless the OP is simply shearing and welding the flat plates (or bent on a brake) with no
further processing like holes and notches.

Even if that's all he's doing.....NOW. The plasma opens up future capabilities.
I won't gt rid of my 30" jump shear, or my 14ga 72" power shear (just yet), but I won't be buying anything bigger shear wise either. And I don't have a working CNC plasma either right now. But I have a laser shop that seems to work dirt cheap.
 
The machine that cuts 1/4" will simply fold the 20ga in most situations, I would think 1/8 and down could be one machine and another for 1/8 and above. I think your floor is OK
My 4' shear is good from 1/8 down and is 1.5hp

I was kind wondering about that. I had read this several places. The place where I occassionally buy some steel from seems to cut it all on their one shear so I wasn't sure. I'm not sure if I have had them do 20 gauge or not but I know that I have had them shear 18 and heavier on a shear rated for 3/8" I believe. I'm not saying its a good practice but only that they are doing it.
 
Now days, for the floor space required, the limited ability of a shear, etc. Going with a cnc plasma cutter makes much more sense.
Not only can a plasma make straight cuts like a shear, it can cut any shape, include bolt holes that eliminate drilling or punching, etc. One youtuber I watch, says since he got his 4x4 CNC plasma, he hardly ever uses his drill press anymore. I wanted a shear myself until the possibilities of the plasma made it a no brainer which machine to choose.

Im not sure about the whole cnc thing. Most everything that I do is done the old school way on very old manual machines. I do really like the capabilities that a cnc cutter would offer but Im thinking that for simply just shearing pieces with no additional stuff done that the shear would be a simpler process for me. I could be wrong in this aspect however-idk. If space and money were no problem I would get both lol. Unfortunately they are both issues. The bulk of my use would be mainly just shearing at this time I think. I will give this some more consideration however. I have time to think on this.
 
Im not sure about the whole cnc thing. Most everything that I do is done the old school way on very old manual machines. I do really like the capabilities that a cnc cutter would offer but Im thinking that for simply just shearing pieces with no additional stuff done that the shear would be a simpler process for me. I could be wrong in this aspect however-idk. If space and money were no problem I would get both lol. Unfortunately they are both issues. The bulk of my use would be mainly just shearing at this time I think. I will give this some more consideration however. I have time to think on this.

Post some pix of your completed parts.
 
"If space and money were no problem"

Powerfull for a 2 letter word that "if" word is. If a frog had wings he wouldn't bump his butt as he hopped along and if a ducks butt wasn't water tight the little bastard would sink were a couple of pops favorite sayings,

I'm up against that "not enough space" thing my self and sheet metal tools are like many that need not only room for the machine but 3 times as much around it so you can use it.

I Picked up a Wysong 4' X 1/8" power shear a while back, it is fairly compact even with the 25" backgauge for $2500.00, to solve the space issue I took off the feed arms and put the face right up against a roll up door. I bring material to it, open the door and feed it off the forklift, it works OK.

I agree with doug, share some pics, it is always fun to see what others are up to
 
Post some pix of your completed parts.

I do not do any kind of production parts. Mostly just one time stuff for either myself or friends. I do not do this for a living, more of a hobby I guess. I have started experimenting a little with metal spinning and built the spinning lathe to be able to spin larger items although I need much more practice before I'm able to use it to full capacity-lol. I attached a picture of the lathe and a couple items that I spun on it. Also included the plate rolls, log splitter, and dump trailer that I built. I'm not real good at taking pics when I should so there are tons of other things that I don't have any pics of but this is a start since you asked for pictures. Some of these items are from quite a few years ago. I am not very fast about getting some things built. I think the lathe took me 6 or 7 years to complete lol.


spinning lathe.jpgspun parts.jpglog splitter 1.jpgcompleted dump trailer pictures 010[1].jpgplate roll 1 resize[1].jpg
 
Any guy that can build machinery and equipment of that caliber would not have any problem mastering a CNC plasma cutter !
Nice work.

Yes, and can use one.

Everything I see pictured is more than just sheared and bent, holes, slots, tabs, etc.

Remember too, the plasma will cut your 16 gauge, and plate up to 1/2" thick (normal thickness limit with a 65 amp supply)
 
Yes, and can use one.

Everything I see pictured is more than just sheared and bent, holes, slots, tabs, etc.

Remember too, the plasma will cut your 16 gauge, and plate up to 1/2" thick (normal thickness limit with a 65 amp supply)

The one I had would allow you to scan in a drawing and cut out all sorts of shapes quite easy too

Nice looking projects, get thet Bowman fellow to keep posting pics he makes interesting stuff.
 
As a fab shop guy, the shear is key. Yes a plasma can cut basically anything you need. How many times do you need to trim a 1/4" off a sheet? How hard is that with a plasma.

I have a 5x10 plasma but I build mostly square items with minimal known holes required at time of cutting.

As far as purchasing a used shear, a mechanical works great. A 1" shear can shear 20 ga, but with a separate time consuming setup. Most places have multiple shears setup for 24 to 1/8, 1/8 to say 3/8, 1/2 to capacity.

There are hydraulic machines with adjustable blade gap simplicity built into the machines, but they are at least 8 feet long. One of my customers has a durma shear from some island in the Pacific. It is 13 feet long and brand new it was about 48k. I paid almost that for my 10' 40 yr old wysong mechanical. That durma shear has a 10 second quick adjusting blade gap, but it sacrifices structural stability for that, as the top assembly sits on a rack system. Some machines like Pacific shears have a strong blade adjusting feature, but requires certain shims and such to be installed. Kind of the best of both worlds.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk
 
As a fab shop guy, the shear is key. Yes a plasma can cut basically anything you need. How many times do you need to trim a 1/4" off a sheet? How hard is that with a plasma.

I do it all the time, I use, wait for it, A "Straight edge"...:crazy:
 
I do it all the time, I use, wait for it, A "Straight edge"...:crazy:
I guess I walked into that one.

I know you can, but if you don't often a shear is just simple and precise with speed compared to a plasma but in cutting jobs the plasma wins hands down

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk
 
I guess I walked into that one.

I know you can, but if you don't often a shear is just simple and precise with speed compared to a plasma but in cutting jobs the plasma wins hands down

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

Op has limited funds, limited power, and limited space (as well as thin concrete floor)

and you want him to get an 8' x 1/2" capacity shear ?....:nutter:
 








 
Back
Top