The Armour Archive

I have been using a jigsaw to do all of my stock cutting. It has worked well for me, but is awfully slow and noisy. With the jigsaw I lay out my patterns on my 2x4 sheet and cut. But, if I'm going to do my cutting on a throatless shear now, 2x4 feet seems a bit unwieldy. How do you cut your steel on a throatless shear?

Dennis

You're right. 4x8 is too big. It also is too big to store. I cut mine into 4x4 sheets first.

Then, cut it into pieces that are more manageable, using the edges of your patterned pieces as much as possible. After it's more manageable, then you can continue cutting up the metal, again using the edges of your patterned pieces as much as possible. That way, every cut you make to make the stock more manageable also is cutting your pieces, so there's little wasted effort. Also, it is important to keep the convex edges to the left of the shear. In other words, it is easier to cut the outside of a curve than the inside, if that makes sense. If you have to cut a concave line, then put the piece to the waste side of the blades-or the right/under side.

Never cut all the way to the end-you will put a dink in the metal.

If you have to cut a sharp inside corner, cut almost all the way to the inside, then stop. Do the same with the other cut-leaving a piece still connecting the waste to the piece. Bend the waste piece until it breaks. THen clean up with a whitney punch (for the actual corner) and sand the sides up into the corner. This will prevent cracking from the slight cuts you made with the shear.

Good luck!

Great explanation Trevor, I’ll put that in to practice immediately!!

eoghan_mw, I got my metal cut at the shop into 2x4 pieces (to fit in my car) -then when i got home and laid my patterns out, then I made at least three rough cuts on each sheet to make the pieces manageable for handling.

I have my metal supplier chop everything into 2X2 sheets. Very manageable and easy to store. I rarely need a sheet to be larger. Some shops charge an arm and a leg for that service though.

Chris

I generally just manhandle the large sheets into the shear, sometimes with the help of another, to cut out the piece with my pattern on it which is by itself manageable.

Put a little bit of duct tape on the bottom of the top blade, wrapping it around the end. This will reduce the amount of scratches it puts onto the metal.

I tried cutting a 4'x8' sheet on my beverly... by myself... Ohhh what a workout, never doing that again

One other tip for you when using a throatless shears, make sure you have the blade gap set correctly. The gap will be about half the thickness of the metal your trying to cut. This will help make smoother cuts and will reduce the amount of cleanup on the edge of your metal.

Sigeric

setting the blades is crucial. Was at an armouring party Yesterday in Bremerton. A B-2 was brought in for use and before I could stop them they were trying to cut 12 guage with it set for 16. Nicked the blades a bit in one spot. The nick was noticable when cutting anything after that. We were able to cut the 12 after I adjusted it, but decided the ban saw was faster and less damaging to the tools.

This may sound stupid but how do you set a shear for a certain gauge? I've got a HF knock-off and chiped the blades on some 18 ga. stainless- I just thought the blades were REALLY crappy.

I use aviation shears primarily (have yet to be lucky enough to afford a throatless shear), and I like to use cutting discs on my angle grinder to slice up the larger sheets into smaller, more managable pieces.

Use allen wrenches on the allen screws and adjust the space between the blades (these screws are on the bottom blade). IIRC, they should be set for app. 25-40% of the thickness of the material you want to cut. So, if you are cutting 18g SS (0.050"), then there should be a consistent gap of 12-20 thousandths of an inch between the blades.

I use a set of automotive feeler guages to get the right set on my B-3. I thought it was 10% of thickness? (But it may be different between a B-2 and a B-3.)

THERE ARE B3'S?

No one tells me anything. How do they compare to B2's?

I beleive B3s can cut thicker steel then B2s (up to 3/16 mild I think), but are larger and have a larger circle cutting radius.

Yes, B3s cut much thicker material, and have a larger cutting radius.

If, like me, you are a real miser and worry about the amount of metal wasted over time by cutting your large sheets of metal into smaller ones before use; may I recommend... Blue plastic barrels! That's right. The ones everyone hates armour made from. Use them to support the part of the metal not being cut.
Maredudd

Sasuke wrote:I have my metal supplier chop everything into 2X2 sheets. Very manageable and easy to store. I rarely need a sheet to be larger. Some shops charge an arm and a leg for that service though.

Chris

I guess I'm lucky, the shop I get my metal from will do it for free. The first time I made the mistake of telling them that I needed it cut into 2x4' pieces and they did, and handed me a handfull of half inch bits of waste, they quartered it and then trimmed it for me. I didn't say anything, but the next time I ordered I asked them to quarter it for me.
The owner of the shop is a good guy, he let us restore a steam locomotive in the unheated part of his building, he never charged us rent, let us use his tools and supplied us materials at his cost. Though he did eventually get the constract for the tender, it had to be built from the ground up. The locomotive took about three years to do and this will be its second season in operation. The track is almost finished so we'll have a complete loop to run on this year.

Beverly B-3 Shears; specs:
Weight: 58 Pounds
Width: 9 Inches
Height: 15 Inches
Handle: 30 Inches
Depth: 14 Inches
Blade Length: 5-5/8 Inches
Length of Cut: 4-1/4 Inches
Capacity: 3/16â€Â