Mike got a compost tumbler made in exchange for his HTML work.
The shear is very useful. It would be nice to have it permanently mounted to a long bench, but it works OK rolling around. The blade height is the same as all of my work benches and sawhorses, at 34".
Please forgive me for asking such an uninformed question, but how does a pneumatic shear handle the compressible nature of air? I'd imagine quite a "snap" after cutting smaller sections.
I couldn't find my camera when Mike came to get it, but I will get pictures soon.
I based mine off of the ones on this site.
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The one I built looks like their biggest model, but I used a 55 gallon Polyethylene drum ($20 new) for the main body and made an aluminum door frame and door for it. I made the support frame from 3/4" aluminum pipe so I could bend it in my hydraulic pipe bender. I used 6" nylon wagon wheels for the rollers, and all stainless steel bolts. My goal was to make sure that nothing could rust. Here in Seattle that is a consideration.
There is enough resistance in the cylinder to prevent that and shearing materiels is more of a slice than a snap.
I picked the cylinder based on some simple calculations as to how much force weas needed. The shear easily cuts 1/8" aluminum, 16 ga steel and 18 ga Stainless steel. The rod shear hole handles 3/8" solid steel bar.
I had to shim the lower blade to get a good cut all the way out to the tips, but it works well now. The idea was to be able to cut large sheet by layingthe sheet on the work bench with and edge hanging off the table. Starting at one end I could work my way down the sheet to make 8 or 10 foot cuts.
It does work, but when possible I run over to my friends shop and his
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