The Armour Archive

Well, I've finally made up my mind.
I'm saving for a B-1.

Does anyone know about the quality (or lack thereof) of the Harbor Freight shears? Further, Eastwood periodically sends me an auto body magazine full of useful tools. The B-1 is listed in there as well. They can be found at www.eastwoodcompany.com

After my experiences with maille, I'm starting light with easily workable material, so I won't need the jaws of life. Any tips or information is greatly appreciated.

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They're MY penguins! I paid for them, and I'll let them out if I wanna! ~DC~

If you are making armour for SCA use, I highly suggest springing for a B-2. The little bit of extra expense will be quickly forgotten when you need to cut your first piece of 16-12ga stainless or heavier milds.

Just my humble opinion.

Brian

I'll second that and suggest looking for a used B-2. they're offered pretty frequently here and the price is usually close to that of a new B-1.
The feedback I've heard on the harbor frieght knock of is that they are unsatisfactory.

When i tried making mail i used wiss snips to cut the rings, and the waire was gavinized 12g steel. And i could get 4 rings at a time. It worked easly enough, but some times my hand started to hurt so i wore a glove, proplem solved. O and wiss snips cost about $18.95 US and were ment for 16g steel(18g stainless) but that didnt stop me from tring to cut stuff. And i use them if i dont want to grind a little bit of extra metal on a lame or something. Plus there fun to use.

We had a Harbor Freight Shears for a short time and found that it really only worked well for light guage metals (ex. 16-18g mild steel). The blades are really bad and chipped alot, I had to resharpen them all the time.

I have since purchases a used B2 which cuts the heavier guages with ease and I've had zero problems with the blades. This has got to be one of the most used tools in my shop and probably the best purchase I've made.

Sigeric

A) If you're saving for a Beverly Shear and you purchase a Harbor Freight, you haven't bought a Beverly Shear. You've bought a Harbor Freigh Shear.

B) Having used both..and not either of them MUCH by ANY means...if it were MY money, which it will be some day, go for the Beverly.

That settles it, then. When I have $400 I don't know what to do with, I'll poke around on the archive and see who wants to part with a B-2. When I thought about it, cutting light metals with a machine made for heavy metals should be relatively easy.

Of course, there's always my upgrade to REAL armour later on, when I don't mash my fingers quite so much, or when a knee cop doesn't look quite so much as it was hacked at by a blind woodsman.....

All things in due time, eh?

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They're MY penguins! I paid for them, and I'll let them out if I wanna! ~DC~

My opinion? Spend $100, but HF Shear... Save up $400 more and then also get B2... HF shear in my shop regularly cuts 14 ga steel without a problem... also thick aluminum and thinner grade steels... its all about getting it set up correctly..

I agree with Jean Paul. For a part time armourer this is the way to go. My HF is working fine.

-M-

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Neil Erasmus

Visit my site
www.geocities.com/neilerasmus/index.html

If one were to set up the Harbor Freight shear, like as suggested here
http://archivepics.members.easyspace.com/HF_Shear_Tutorial.html
will it cut 16G stainless? 95 % of what I do is lighter that this, I just have a couple of
projects to do from stainless.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by sedric:
<B> If one were to set up the Harbor Freight shear, like as suggested here
http://archivepics.members.easyspace.com/HF_Shear_Tutorial.html
will it cut 16G stainless? 95 % of what I do is lighter that this, I just have a couple of
projects to do from stainless.</B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Mine does.