Metal Shear

For my Beverly throatless shear the instruction sheet says,"in general for burr-free cuts set the blades for 1/4 to 1/10th the thickness of the metal to be cut. Adjust as needed. Larry

MOP CAP wrote in news:250420051632440309% snipped-for-privacy@mindspring.com:
I was told by the manufacturer of my Tennsmith 52" pneumatic to set it at 0.002". When I first started using it, it was pushing the sheets out from square as it cut. It took about 4 calls to finlly get one old guy who knew what this symptom meant. After shipping it had been 0.000" on one end and 0.005" on the other. Tweeked it to spec' and it cuts the way it's supposed to.

Thanks to all who replied. There seems to be a wide variation as to what it should be. I went to DiAcro's web site and down loaded their manual for the 24" shear of which I have an almost unused version. They said that theirs was set up to cut 16 ga. material and to only sharpen the blades on the top and bottom sides. They did not specify a blade clearance. So I take my self down to the shop get a feeler gauge and proceed to the shear. There seems to be .002 at the very ends and zero in the middle. I did manage to make a clean burr free cut on the end of my .002 blade. I am not sure I no more now than when I started.
Thanks again,
Chuck P.

Set it to 2% of the metal thickness you most commonly shear. There was nothing contradictory in the preceeding statements. The thickness of the metal is what determines the clearance. Setting the center .001" tighter is correct as the machine will deform under load and allow an increase the clearance. Leigh@MarMachine