The Armour Archive

I've had a harbor freight knockoff of a beverly shear for a decade, at least. I've followed all the online advice about adjustments, improvements, blade regrinding, etc. For years i've been cleaning up slightly ragged cuts by planishing them flat again and running them along a flap wheel bench grinder. I keep the blade aligned and gapped per the instructions.

Somewhere in a drawer there was always a little bocx with replacement blades I bought from someone here. Once a year I'd stumble across them and think "Oh, I don't need those yet." After all, my original blades are only mildly chipped...

Well, today I had to take the shear outside to help a neighbor cut an 8ft long sheet into strips 2" wide. As soon as I hit sunlight, I noticed my lower blade had a definite crack 95% across it, just barely held together at the cutting edge. Finally, time for the replacement blades. 10 min to find, install, gap, etc.

And then I cried.

Well, on the inside.

The first cut was water jet smooth. Laser smooth. God's Divine Will smooth. Required no dressing.

I cried for all the time I'd wasted cleaning sloppily cut edges... easily tripling the time to make any cut. I cried for the wasted energy, electricity, abrasives, etc. I cried for my own pigheaded frugality that made everything cost MORE just to save on the use fo a little set of clean blades.

40 FEET of smooth perfect no additional work cuts.

Sometimes [like the last 8 years of work] i make more work for myself out of stubbornness.

Y'all probably already do this, but check your shear and keep it sharp. Saves a heck of a lot of embarrassment, even if just internal.

Edited to add this image, both cuts direct from the shear, no cleanup. New on the left, old on the right.

Set aside a few bucks when you can to upgrade.

Yeah so where did you get the replacement blades? I would have replaced mine long ago just for the one chip right at the back where every single cut starts.... but I am not sure who sells them.

losthelm wrote:Set aside a few bucks when you can to upgrade.

Or better yet, buy a B2 and keep it gapped for thick, and keep the perfectly functioning knockoff and gap it for thin. Works great for me.....

I bought them from Clang 6 years ago. viewtopic.php?f=3&t=105403&hilit=shear+blades

They're unavailable now. I vaguely remember someone [here or on Anvilefire.com] saying that real beverly replacement blades would fit the HF shear. Looking at the blades, I think its possible to simply make replacements out of O1 flat stock. Just need to get the curve right.

95% of what I do is .060 and thinner, so I don't think I'm spending extra for a real Beverly anytime soon. I have a band saw for really thick stuff.

http://www.eastwood.com/replacement-bla ... shear.html

These look extremely close to the HF ones, and I've seen the eastwood shear first hand, it might as well be the exact same casting.

There are a handful of company's selling beverly knockoffs.
It wouldn't supprize me if there where just rebranding at the same factory.

That's exactly what's going on -- they're all from the same Chinese factory, and just maybe there are replacement shear blades available on one or more companys' websites.

Or you go find a regrinding shop you like locally. They can generally cope with this sort of thing. If you have a band sander, you can generally cope if you can reliably maintain the factory angle. You need an angle-adjustable table to prop the blade on.