Hi,
I bought this shear about 6 months ago and have been cutting 5052 sheet aluminum with it on an irregular basis. The aluminum has been thin, most of it 20ga. and one small piece that was 16ga. It cuts like butter, leaves no marks on the finished surface, and leaves smooth edges. It's my favorite new tool, and my plasma has been taking a long vacation.
I'm now using it to cut several pieces of 20ga. stainless 304 #4 finish for a kitchen. I made two cuts yesterday that were 8' long without too much problem, but now it's not doing anything. It's totally sucking. It's supposed to be able to cut up to 16ga. stainless. It's stalling at a low cutting speed, and the shear won't even move if I give it pressure. If I gun it to it's max speed and give it pressure, it moves, but not well, and it marks the crap out of the metal. I can't use this to cut the finished piece, obviously, if it's going to mark it all up, and if I have to give it that kind of pressure to move (which I shouldn't), it's never going to be a straight cut. I don't want to use plasma because of the heat-affected areas (the edges will all be visible). I've tried cleaning the blades and adjusting them, which only affects the curl of the cut-strip. It still cuts scrap aluminum with no problem, but it's still not cutting the stainless. Do I need new blades? Anyone have experience cutting finish work with shears v. plasma, or with these shears? I'm not aware at all of the sharpening/replacing timeframe for these blades. I wouldn't be surprised, of course, that the stainless would shorten the life of these blades significantly (giving to the compared hardness of stainless), but I'm surprised that they would need it already. The blades do show a little bit of wear. Is there something to do to minimize blade wear?
Note: the center blade of this shear wiggles laterally just a tad (1/64" or less) - I'm assuming that's normal.
Thanks in advance for any advice!
Brook