Harbor Freight Shear Finally Arrived!

Loren Patterson · Post by **Loren Patterson** » Wed Jul 11, 2001 3:39 pm

Well, it's finally here, my HF Shear. Out of the box.. the blades were well aligned, although pretty close, but they didnt touch, scrape, nor collide. Also, there is plenty of room behind the blade to pull it back for thicker sheet. I only had 20 minutes to examine it at lunch, but I already noticed that the holes for attaching the handle to the base didn't line up.. and there were only two holes at the back of the base to hold it down, so I'll need to improve things a little, plus a paint job and i'll take off the stupid tin sign showing off the harbor freight brand name.. but so far.. everything is just as good as I could have hoped. I'll give an update tonight when I have more time to examine it.
Cheers!
- Loren

Clay · Post by **Clay** » Wed Jul 11, 2001 4:55 pm

After some grinding and shaping of the blades, our Harbor Freight shear cuts 14ga mild without much problem. But it does not like stainless, not even 20 gauge. I should have adjusted the blades more before trying the 20ga, and it still cut, but mild steel is much easier.

BTW, I got notice that my electric shear just got shipped today, so it should be here later on this week or Monday. Figures. When I'm going to be out of town, it shows up...

Loren Patterson · Post by **Loren Patterson** » Wed Jul 11, 2001 5:05 pm

Oh that sucks..
What was the reason for the grinding and shaping of the HF shear blades? were they hitting each other with no room to adjust the blade back?
- Loren

Aaron · Post by **Aaron** » Wed Jul 11, 2001 5:37 pm

Cool! Just don't try stainless...I've heard awful things about stainless ruining Beverly Shears...let alone a Harbor Freight shear.

See you in less than two weeks.

-Aaron

Clay · Post by **Clay** » Wed Jul 11, 2001 7:07 pm

Loren, that's correct. They kept hitting each other and started chipping. This was easily fixed by grinding down the blades.

As long as this thing holds up for a year or two, I'll be more than happy with it.

Loren Patterson · Post by **Loren Patterson** » Wed Jul 11, 2001 10:22 pm

well, I had to do quite a bit of grinding on the back edge of the bottom blade to get a nice even gap between the blades to do 16ga.. and i ground away part of the frame where, if the top blade goes down too far, it hits the frame.. now it clears. and also I ground on the retaining clip so that when tightening the clip, it doesn't pull the blade to the right..
I already have 3 very small chips in the blade.. i'm not sure if its from not enough of a gap when cutting 16ga.. but i know 2 of the tiny chips happened when i used them to cut 22ga when the blades were as close as scissor blades. but now its on a stand.. I just have to practice control.. but other than that i'm happy I bought it.
- Loren