Well if all you're going to cut is thin aluminum, sure. Put some 16 Ga. stainless in there and see how it cuts. You'll wish you had a hold down but that's another story.
Shear blades should be set tight in the middle of the span to compensate for bridge deflection. But you're just a light weigth aluminum type guy so you're all set with parallel clearances.
I've tried to stay out of this debate, as there is no way either side is going to convince the other, and nothing to be gained. But now I cannot help it. I feel I must respond to this latest entry in the debate.
As I said before, I was a journeyman sheet metal worker in the AFL-CIO, specializing in layout/fabrication/welding, and etc. I worked with many different kinds of sheet metal shears all day every single day, and even if I do say so myself,
I was pretty good at my job.
In our region we called this type of shear a "
stomp shear", and we used them constantly. These were indispensible shop tools, used daily for cutting light gage mild steel. They were simply much faster and easier to use for smaller, lighter cuts than bigger shears. This type of shear has
no need whatsoever for a hold-down foot in front of the blade. It’s not designed for that kind of work, and should not be used for heavier-gage applications.
However, the other point some folks made that it is easier to see your cut line without a hold-down is really kind of a moot point for most professional sheet metal techs. In low-light or difficult-to-see conditions, we just made two light cuts with our aviation snips right on our cut line, slightly bending down the scrap-side of the cuts, then slipped the metal over the cutting edge of the bottom blade, pulling the metal tightly back towards ourselves, and made our cut--- exactly on our line (whether cutting with a foot-powered or power shear. Visibility is not usually a problem.)
The capacity for this shear was stated on the first page of the OP's string, in reply to a question:
"I would love to have a shear like that some day, what gage is that good for?"
"Capacity is 32" by 18 gauge in mild steel."
So, now we all know that the capacity for this machine is
18 gage mild steel, by 32”. In the shops I worked in, if anyone were seen approaching a 32” stomp shear with
any piece of stainless steel, he would be in deep sh#t with the shop foreman
(and the other journeymen, who did not want our equipment to be abused. We had to WORK with those machines, and we wanted them to stay in top working order). And, if someone were to try and cut a piece of
16 gage stainless steel on an 18-gage-capacity stomp shear…he would be discharged immediately, and ostracized by the other techs. That’s unacceptable and
just NOT DONE in a sheet metal shop. It’s like someone cutting
wire with your aviation tin snips.
Come to think of it, it’s more like an automotive technician using two or three adaptors to enable him to drive a ¼” drive chrome socket with a ½” drive impact wrench. But just because you won't like the results using a 1/4" drive socket with a 1/2" drive impact wrench, does not mean that a 1/4" drive socket is a useless or bad tool...it's just supposed to be used on small, light-duty jobs,
within its capacity.
Simply stated, you just do not try to exceed the capacity of a shear!
A trained sheet metal technician knows that the wider your cut, the lighter your gage of metal must be to remain within capacity. So a 32” cut of 18 gage mild steel is sort of pushing it on this shear. And it is true that if you try to cut too long of a piece of steel which is at or near the capacity of a shear, it may try to “walk” during the movement of the cutting blade.
(This is the time when you need mechanical or hydraulic hold-down feet to grip your piece of steel during the cut.) When this happens you end up with a crooked cut. But, with newly-sharpened blades
(and proper adjustment) you can make good clean cuts at full capacity. But no trained professional sheet metal tech would approach an 18 gage capacity stomp shear with a whole stack of 32" wide pieces of 18 gage steel planning to make dozens of cuts. Rather he would go instead to a power shear.
(Shouldn't we all try to avoid pushing the limit of any industrial machine's capacity?) But if you’ve got something well below the capacity of a 32” stomp shear, IE: like a
14” piece of 20 gage you want to cut,
you simply cannot beat this little stomp shear for simplicity and speed of use.
In the shop I worked in for the greatest number of years, we had several shears, including big Cincinnati power shears with
10 gage by 10 foot capacity, and little stomp shears, and
several others in between. And I’ll bet you that we used the little stomp shears just about as often as we did the big ones. Why?
Because these little stomp shears are great tools, if you use them as intended.
Elroy is clearly a sharp guy. I have often admired his posts on how-to-do mechanical things, many of which I cannot do myself. For example, I freely admit that I have never adjusted the blades on any shear
(the tin shops wouldn't allow us journeymen to even try. They used specialists for that work. It is very critical, and must be done exactly right or your blades get dull much too quickly, and/or you start leaving razor-sharp hanging edges on your cuts). But I cannot agree that this little shear is anything less than a terrific tool.
For myself, having used lots of different kinds of sheet metal tools and shears. I liked the little stomp shears well enough that I bought a Niagara model very similar to the one in this post, and have it sitting in my shop right now.
