This is more of a separating that a joining question, but I think this is the place to ask.
I'm looking for a hand-held shear to cut 12ga. stainless minimum. I need to cut a manway into a food processes vessel and don't want to throw metal all over. I've heard such shears exist, are air powered, and cut up to 3/16 but I can't find anything.
Any leads appreciated.
Ed
Electric power nibbler.
Metabo and Makita both make big ones. A nibbler won't distort the metal, but it does remove a 1/4" swath.
A eletric power shear will also work, but it would be much harder to use for this application. Of course a plasma cutter would work great. Plasma cutters rent for about $100 per week.
I've seen an air shear at Harbor Freight oddly enough. Also, most metal roofing, or metal building suppliers will carry heavy duty air shears for cutting steel sheet metal. I suspect that a HVAC supplier might carry shears as well. The type that I use peels a strip out of the middle between two shears. I believe that I've also seen a similar tool in a catalog at Home Depot.
Good luck,
D> This is more of a separating that a joining question, but I think this
12 ga stainless is about .1" thick and is going to be some tough stuff to cut. All of the little nibblers and shears at Harbor Freight are rated 16-18 ga max, and I bet that most anything that an HVAC supplier carries will be the same since most ductwork is 22 ga and thinner. That plasma cutter is looking better and better :-).
-- Regards, Carl Ijames carl.ijames at verizon.net
I agree a 12 ga. stainless it just a hair under 1/8". I work with 1/8 stainless and can confirm.... it is one tough cookie to cut. any hand held / air operated toll will need to have a massive blade and more massive fixture not to flex, the tool and the operator will get a good work out.
I use plasma to cut it and grinder to clean the edge, I als can tell you I hate working with SS because it eat up all my tools, grinding weels, dirll bits, carbide deburring bits. it disolors, magnet to fingerprints and so on.
when I go back and work with mild steel it make me appriciate the softness of steel.
anyway.... I would say go for a plasma , use a shield on the back side to catch any flying debris, vacuum , mop up after it is cut.
"Ed" skrev i en meddelelse news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com...
If the vessel has an automated cleaning system ( CIP ) one of the tricks you can use to remove dust from grinding, cutting etc. is butter..
Remove any large chunks of metal.. Grab a few packs of butter and use this as a broom... get the insides greased up good, start the CIP process and be done with it.... If the CIP system recycles the cleaning fluids you may want to make sure the return water from this tank goes in the sewers instead.. Most of the filters wont catch dust from grinding etc..
This is the procedure specified for metal parts removal in the cheese vats where I work..
Vacuum cleaning is also good, but you do need to be VERY careful to get all the dust out..
/peter
If you know cheese vats then you know cheese belts - which is what I'm talking about. You can understand we don't want *any* metal getting into the vessel since the plastic link-belt could easily grab some and they would come loose into the cheese.
Otherwise, we would use abrasive cut-off wheels. Plasma is also out, just impossible to catch everything inside, the big nibbler with careful plastic sheeting and taping... maybe. But I talked to a welder that assembled ss tanks who had a big hand-held shear, the 3 jaw kind. They used it just how I'd like to. Problem is I can't find one! I looked at the 8-gauge electric ones and they might be a borderline solution. I wonder from the picture if that bar that holds one of the
2 jaws would be an obstruction to inside cuts...Ed
How about punching some BIG holes with a greenlee punch and just cutting between them with a power shear. No chips that way.
Yes we can punch 4" or maybe 6" holes in 12 ga. ss with our setup, but I was looking for a power shear that would handle a little more than
8ga mild steel capacity ones I've seen. They would work, I think, but it would be nice to find the supposed 7ga ss cap. one a welder claims exist(ed), for other work.Also, all the power shears I have seen have two blades. The one descibed to me had two 3/16 fixed anvils and a center cutter like the lighter-duty air shears. Seems those would be easier to use (turn better, much smaller hole to drop in, etc.) but I dunno.
With the other style, that use 2 blades like :
Ed
"Ed" skrev i en meddelelse news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com...
I know more than you'd ever want to know about cheesemaking :-)
One option could be to remove the belt before doing any cutting..
If its anywhere near the belts we use in the prepress ( we use a 2 stage pressing system from APV / Invensys) it would be pretty simple to just remove the belts.. Just remove the plastic pins connecting the links... takes 10 minutes to get them out, but takes 3 hours to put them back in..
Thats what is normally used here, but cleanup is a bitch.. Be sure to cover up everything in a 5 metre radius from where you are cutting.... Clean the insides of the tank using the butter method I described.. Do this several times.... Oh.. and if you are doing any welding DONT EVER USE A WIREWHEEL to clean up the welds.. The last 2 times the repairpeople have done any welding inside the vats ( wich are basically a large tank w. a bi-directional stirring mechanism ) we have found parts of the wirewheels in the cheese.. This ofcourse resulted in QC rejection of several tons of cheese..
I like Ernies idea of using punches.. Maybe I should make a suggestion to the maintenance guys here..
/peter
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-- Regards, Carl Ijames carl.ijames at verizon.net
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