Shear (sheet metal)

Last updated August 18, 2024

There are many types of shears used to shear or cut sheet metal.

Types

Alligator shear

An alligator shear, historically known as a lever shear and sometimes as a crocodile shear, is a metal-cutting shear with a hinged jaw, powered by a flywheel or hydraulic cylinder. Alligator shears are generally set up as stand-alone shears; however, there are types for excavators. The jaw size can range from 4 to 36 in (100 to 910 mm) long. They are generally used to cut ferrous members, such as rebar, pipe, angle iron, or I-beams.

Bench shear

A bench shear, also known as a lever shear, is a bench mounted shear with a compound mechanism to increase the mechanical advantage. It is usually used for cutting rough shapes out of medium-sized pieces of sheet metal, but cannot do delicate work.^[1]^[2] For the small shear, it mostly designed for a wide field of applications. Light weight and easy efficient operation, yet very sturdy in construction. The cutting blades fitted are carefully and accurately ground to give easy, clean quick cuts, and free of burrs. These special features help the operators save a great deal of their energy. But some shearing machines can cut sheet bar and flat bar up to 10mm. It is electrically welded together to make it a sturdy stable unit capable to withstand highest stresses due to heavy duty usage. The footplates are reinforced with bracing angles so that they give firm stability to the shear. The machine is provided with section knives with sliding blades which can be adjusted by hand to make 90 cuts on angles and T-sections of different sizes as well as with openings for cutting round and square bars.^[3]

Guillotine

The machine used is called a squaring shear, power shear, or guillotine. The machine may be foot powered, less commonly hand powered, or mechanically or hydraulically powered. It works by first clamping the material with a ram. A moving blade then comes down across a fixed blade to shear the material. For larger shears the moving blade may be set on an angle or "rocked" in order to shear the material progressively from one side to the other; this angle is referred to as the shear angle. Setting the blade on an angle decreases the amount of force required, but increases the stroke. A 5-degree shear angle decreases the force by about 20% ^{[ citation needed ]}. The amount of energy used is still the same. The moving blade may also be inclined 0.5 to 2.5°, called the rake angle, to keep the material from becoming wedged between the blades. However, raking the blade compromises the squareness of the edge.^[4] The machine consists of a shear table, work-holding device, upper and lower blades, and a gauging device. The shear table is the part of the machinery that the workpiece rests on whilst being shorn. The work-holding device is used to hold the workpiece in place and keep it from moving or buckling while under stress. The upper and lower blades are the piece of machinery that actually do the cutting, while the gauging device is used to ensure that the workpiece gets worked where it is supposed to be.

The design of press tools is an engineering compromise. A sharp edge, strength, and durability are ideal, but a sharp edge is not very strong or durable, so blades for metal work tend to be square-edged rather than knife-edged. Typical workpiece materials include aluminum, brass, bronze, and mild steel because of their outstanding shearability ratings. Stainless steel is not sheared as often due to its tendency to work-harden.

Other geometric possibilities include the squaring shear, angle shear, bow-tie shear and bar shear. All of these have many different uses and are all used regularly in certain manufacturing fields.^{[ citation needed ]}

Power shears

A power shear is electrically or pneumatically powered hand tool designed to blank large pieces of sheet metal. They are designed to cut straight lines and relatively large radius curves. They are advantageous over a bandsaw because there is not a size limit. Large versions can cut sheet metal up to 12 gauge.^[5] An alternative to the hand tools are hydraulically powered tools attached to heavy machinery. They are usually used to cut materials that are too bulky to be transported to a cutting facility, too big or dangerous for the hand tools and are stored at remote locations (e.g. mines, forests).^[6]

Throatless shear

A throatless shear is a cutting tool used to make complex straight and curved cuts in sheet metal. The throatless shear takes its name from the fact that the metal can be freely moved around the cutting blade (it does not have a throat down which metal must be fed), allowing great flexibility in shapes that can be cut.

Tin snips

Snips, also known as shears, are hand tools used to cut sheet metal and other tough webs. It is a cutting tool. Workers use various types of snips, either straight or blend one be obtained. The straight or bent being not only for straight cuts but for inside of the curvature or concave curvature too. There are two broad categories: tinner's snips, which are similar to common scissors, and compound-action snips, which use a compound leverage handle system to increase the mechanical advantage.

Related Research Articles

A chisel is a wedged hand tool with a characteristically shaped cutting edge on the end of its blade, for carving or cutting a hard material. The tool can be used by hand, struck with a mallet, or applied with mechanical power. The handle and blade of some types of chisel are made of metal or wood with a sharp edge in it.

Metalworking is the process of shaping and reshaping metals in order to create useful objects, parts, assemblies, and large scale structures. As a term, it covers a wide and diverse range of processes, skills, and tools for producing objects on every scale: from huge ships, buildings, and bridges, down to precise engine parts and delicate jewelry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hobbing</span> Process used to cut teeth into gears

Hobbing is a machining process for gear cutting, cutting splines, and cutting sprockets using a hobbing machine, a specialized milling machine. The teeth or splines of the gear are progressively cut into the material by a series of cuts made by a cutting tool called a hob.

Machining is a manufacturing process where a desired shape or part is created using the controlled removal of material, most often metal, from a larger piece of raw material by cutting. Machining is a form of subtractive manufacturing, which utilizes machine tools, in contrast to additive manufacturing, which uses controlled addition of material.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nibbler</span> Tool for cutting sheet metal

A nibbler, or nibblers, is a tool for cutting sheet metal with minimal distortion. They may be used for nibbling. One type operates much like a punch and die, with a blade that moves in a linear fashion against a fixed die, removing small bits of metal and leaving a kerf approximately 6 mm (0.24 in) wide. Another type operates similar to tin snips, but shears the sheet along two parallel tracks 3–6 mm (0.12–0.24 in) apart, rolling up the waste in a tight spiral as it cuts. Nibblers may be manual or powered.

A die is a specialized machine tool used in manufacturing industries to cut and/or form material to a desired shape or profile. Stamping dies are used with a press, as opposed to drawing dies and casting dies which are not. Like molds, dies are generally customized to the item they are used to create.

Broaching is a machining process that uses a toothed tool, called a broach, to remove material. There are two main types of broaching: linear and rotary. In linear broaching, which is the more common process, the broach is run linearly against a surface of the workpiece to produce the cut. Linear broaches are used in a broaching machine, which is also sometimes shortened to broach. In rotary broaching, the broach is rotated and pressed into the workpiece to cut an axisymmetric shape. A rotary broach is used in a lathe or screw machine. In both processes the cut is performed in one pass of the broach, which makes it very efficient.

A miter saw or mitre saw is a saw used to make accurate crosscuts and miters in a workpiece by positioning a mounted blade onto a board. A miter saw in its earliest form was composed of a back saw in a miter box, but in modern implementation consists of a powered circular saw that can be positioned at a variety of angles and lowered onto a board positioned against a backstop called the fence.

Sheet metal is metal formed into thin, flat pieces, usually by an industrial process.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Turning</span> Machining process

Turning is a machining process in which a cutting tool, typically a non-rotary tool bit, describes a helix toolpath by moving more or less linearly while the workpiece rotates.

Metalworking hand tools are hand tools used in the metalworking field, powered entirely by the operator. There are lots of tools, fit for different actions to the material, such as shrinking or modifying its surface.

In metalworking, rolling is a metal forming process in which metal stock is passed through one or more pairs of rolls to reduce the thickness, to make the thickness uniform, and/or to impart a desired mechanical property. The concept is similar to the rolling of dough. Rolling is classified according to the temperature of the metal rolled. If the temperature of the metal is above its recrystallization temperature, then the process is known as hot rolling. If the temperature of the metal is below its recrystallization temperature, the process is known as cold rolling. In terms of usage, hot rolling processes more tonnage than any other manufacturing process, and cold rolling processes the most tonnage out of all cold working processes. Roll stands holding pairs of rolls are grouped together into rolling mills that can quickly process metal, typically steel, into products such as structural steel, bar stock, and rails. Most steel mills have rolling mill divisions that convert the semi-finished casting products into finished products.

Die cutting is the general process of using a die to shear webs of low-strength materials, such as rubber, fibre, foil, cloth, paper, corrugated fibreboard, chipboard, paperboard, plastics, pressure-sensitive adhesive tapes, foam, and sheet metal. In the metalworking and leather industries, the process is known as clicking and the machine may be referred to as a clicking machine. When a dinking die or dinking machine is used, the process is known as dinking. Commonly produced items using this process include gaskets, labels, tokens, corrugated boxes, and envelopes.

In the context of machining, a cutting tool or cutter is typically a hardened metal tool that is used to cut, shape, and remove material from a workpiece by means of machining tools as well as abrasive tools by way of shear deformation. The majority of these tools are designed exclusively for metals.

Snips, also known as shears, are hand tools used to cut sheet metal and other tough webs. It is a cutting tool. Workers use various types of snips, with the cutting edges being straight or curved to various degrees. The style of edge employed will depend if a straight sheer or some type of shapes cut is necessary. There are two broad categories: tinner's snips, which are similar to common scissors, and compound-action snips, which use a compound leverage handle system to increase the mechanical advantage.

In metallurgy, cold forming or cold working is any metalworking process in which metal is shaped below its recrystallization temperature, usually at the ambient temperature. Such processes are contrasted with hot working techniques like hot rolling, forging, welding, etc. The same or similar terms are used in glassmaking for the equivalents; for example cut glass is made by "cold work", cutting or grinding a formed object.

Roll slitting is a shearing operation that cuts a large roll of material into narrower rolls. There are two types of slitting: log slitting and rewind slitting. In log slitting the roll of material is treated as a whole and one or more slices are taken from it without an unrolling/re-reeling process. In rewind slitting the web is unwound and run through the machine, passing through knives or lasers, before being rewound on one or more shafts to form narrower rolls. The multiple narrower strips of material may be known as mults or pancakes if their diameter is much more than their width. For rewind slitting the machine used is called a slitter rewinder, a slitter or a slitting machine – these names are used interchangeably for the same machines. For particularly narrow and thin products, the pancakes become unstable, and then the rewind may be onto a bobbin-wound reel: the rewind bobbins are much wider than the slit width and the web oscillates across the reel as it is rewound. Apart from the stability benefit it is also then possible to put very long lengths,, onto one bobbin.

Shearing, also known as die cutting, is a process that cuts stock without the formation of chips or the use of burning or melting. Strictly speaking, if the cutting blades are straight the process is called shearing; if the cutting blades are curved then they are shearing-type operations. The most commonly sheared materials are in the form of sheet metal or plates. However, rods can also be sheared. Shearing-type operations include blanking, piercing, roll slitting, and trimming. It is used for metal, fabric, paper and plastics.

Blanking and piercing are shearing processes in which a punch and die are used to produce parts from coil or sheet stock. Blanking produces the outside features of the component, while piercing produces internal holes or shapes. The web is created after multiple components have been produced and is considered scrap material. The "slugs" produced by piercing internal features are also considered scrap. The terms "piercing" and "punching" can be used interchangeably.

A disc cutter is a specialised, often hand-held, power tool used for cutting hard materials, ceramic tile, metal, concrete, and stone for example. This tool is very similar to an angle grinder, chop saw, or even a die grinder, with the main difference being the cutting disc itself. This tool is highly efficient at cutting very hard materials, especially when compared to hand tools.

References

↑ Warg, Pauline (2006), Making Metal Beads: Techniques, Projects, Inspiration, Sterling Publishing Company, p. 12, ISBN 978-1-57990-712-9.
↑ "Hand-operated metal shear of heavy-duty work", Popular Mechanics , 53 (6): 979, June 1930, ISSN 0032-4558.
↑ Steel Shearing Machine , retrieved 2011-07-29.
↑ Degarmo, Black & Kohser 2003 , pp. 426–427
↑ Fournier, Sue (1990), Metal fabricator's handbook, HPBooks, p. 28, ISBN 978-0-89586-870-1.
↑ Conveyor belt recycling and demolition shear

Bibliography

Degarmo, E. Paul; Black, J T.; Kohser, Ronald A. (2003), Materials and Processes in Manufacturing (9th ed.), Wiley, ISBN 0-471-65653-4.

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[1] Warg, Pauline (2006), Making Metal Beads: Techniques, Projects, Inspiration, Sterling Publishing Company, p. 12, ISBN 978-1-57990-712-9.

[2] "Hand-operated metal shear of heavy-duty work", Popular Mechanics , 53 (6): 979, June 1930, ISSN 0032-4558.

[3] Steel Shearing Machine , retrieved 2011-07-29.

[degarmo-4] Degarmo, Black & Kohser 2003 , pp. 426–427

[5] Fournier, Sue (1990), Metal fabricator's handbook, HPBooks, p. 28, ISBN 978-0-89586-870-1.

[6] Conveyor belt recycling and demolition shear

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