Hi guys,
I’m working on a handout for a couple of different shears, and I
have a question…
Shears (of various sorts) are generally rated by the thickness of
steel they’ll cut. So shear-X will cut 14 ga steel, while shear-Y
will only cut 18 ga, & etc.
This is great, in shops that only cut steel. Being metalsmiths, we
tend to cut all sorts of odd things. Everything from titanium to
gold, all of which have different hardnesses, and thus shear
differently. For example, a shear which can handle 14 ga steel will
obviously handle a much thicker piece of aluminum, and would probably
choke on a 14 ga sheet of stainless. (Nevermind that the gauges are
different between ferris, non-ferris & precious metals, so in
addition to the metal involved, you need to remember which gauge
system they’re talking about…) (Whatever I do will have its
primary axis in thousandths of an inch or MM, with callouts for
’standard’ gauges.)
So, has anybody ever seen or compiled a cross reference for shearing
effort among various materials? Anybody have a clue where to go to
look up the info to build such a chart?
Regards,
Brian.