3-IN-1/8

I ordered this shear after reviewing various options online. I currently have a bench shear bought from Northern Tool - a Klutch plate 12” shear. It does well on larger, thicker metals, but does not support the metal and can leave some curl. My Use: My use is for a small, personal jewelry studio to be used for cutting silver, copper and brass to 18-16 gauge. While Pepe tools and others make excellent guillotine shears, they cost 800-1200$. Notwithstanding the fine products and excellent features, I can't afford them for my studio…. yet. Features The guillotine configuration and hold-down features of this product were essential for my use. The added feature of rollers for sheet and tubing are nice and work ok for my use. Break feature is less likely to be used by me. My Assessment: Very well constructed and sturdy. It works right out of the box. All you have to do is clean the shipping lubricant off, attach the handle, and mount to a bench/surface. Note that the handle may be secured readily to either side of the shear. It must be noted that the mounting holes do not allow ready mounting via a bolt from the top (short space), but several alternative approaches exist. (Mound bolt from below with securing nuts on top or insert a threaded rod secured with top nuts and secure with additional nuts from below the mounting surface.) I did find the shear needed two minor modifications for my use: 1 – Gluing on a ‘stop' for holding the cover from hitting the shear when opened when using the curling rollers. (See pictures of closed and open roller cover.) 2 – Adding another right-hand edge to align shorter lengths of sheet metal. (See brass attachment in photo.) I also epoxied a small cm scale for measuring feed of smaller pieces to be cut. (See picture of edge and of sample cut pieces.) Note – Even if you just use the supplied right-hand edge, you should adjust to precise square with a square machinist’s edge or drawing triangle. The shear cuts copper, brass and silver effortlessly … giving nice straight and squared cuts with NO CURL or lip. I can cut 1 mm lengths reproducibly. (See picture.) I’ve cut copper to 18 gauge and brass to 20 gauge. Additional Notes 1 – I don’t use the brake, so cannot comment on this function. 2 – The roller adjustment screws are not calibrated, so you must adjust “as needed" for your use. Overall, I found this a great and satisfying buy. I can recommend it as a less expensive alternative to more expensive jewelry tool versions.

#1: Yes, its covered in grease. Just like every new piece of machinery (which is what this is) it is absolutely slathered in grease so that it can travel across an ocean, in a shipping container, thru warehouses, and arrive at your door step with no rust. Buy a rag and get over it. #2: Yes, it needs a ton of adjustment to set up. Just like every new piece of machinery it needs to be calibrated, adjusted, shimmed, cinched down, checked, readjusted, and set up for the materials you intend to process. If you don't own a set of shim gauges or don't even know what those are then do not buy this. If you've never used or adjusted a full size slip roll, shear, or press brake this machine is going to seem like it has no adjustments. That is false. It has tons of adjustments. In fact they're all over the place, but you have to know what you're doing. You need to shim the gap on the shear blades, I went with .006" for 20ga. You need to square the guide. You need to adjust and lock in the shear blade itself to remove slop. You need to adjust the spring clamp. You have to pressure set the press brake dies, then tighten them down. You have to set the depth of the dies to acheive the bend angle you want for the material you're going to use. If you change material thickness you're going to have to readjust, just like any press brake. You have to shim the two main slip rolls... this is all normal stuff folks. Everything you would do to a 60 ton press brake, a 12ft shear, or a full size plate roll you will need to do here. If you dont know how to do that stuff don't buy it and leave a 1 star review just because it wasn't as easy as using a toaster. This isnt a tool, this isn't a easy bake oven, its a metal processing machine... Actually its three metal processing machines. I took me literally 4 hours to get everything dialed in exactly where I wanted and to be honest thats exactly what I was anticipating given the capability of this machine. #3: once it is set up and dialed in this thing works surprisingly well for the price. We're talking perfect bends, clean cuts, and straight rolls. Its a wonderful machine for folks who know how to use it and what its designed for. I'm going to use this a ton for stuff around the house. Brackets, boxes, dividers, trays, organizers, clips, etc. I have it set up for 20ga steel and for once a company didn't overstate the machine's capability. It will absolutely shear, brake, and roll 8" of 20ga mild steel all day. You can even go up to 16ga if you're willing to choke the width down to 4". #4: the backset stop does suck. Its useless. Its impossible to get accurate and its flimsy. I dont care, I would never rely on a backset stop for a machine this small. Its about my only complaint other than the weird lead bearings on the main top roll which should be swapped for 3/8" steel pipe. fortunately i had some, one is ~1/2" long, the other is about ~1/4" long, it took all of 1 minute to cut two slivers of pipe, problem solved. #5: getting it mounted down is an issue. They put the front mounting holes in an inaccessible location so you'll either need to clamp it to the end of a table or weld some extensions on the feet that you can drill an anchoring hole thru. I went with clamps and it works fine, I want to be able to put it away. #6: instead of hot gluing a popsicle stick to hold the slip roll cover from banging against the frame like some other reviewer did, JUST TAKE IT OFF! Lol. The cover is removable... On purpose... Because you need it off to slip roll... It literally just unclips off the pins. DO NOT BUY THIS IF YOU'RE A HOBBIEST OR SOME DUDE WHO'S GONNA "START A LITTLE HOME BUSINESS". You're going to be mad and you're going to leave a bad review because they didn't give you a cute little manual that explains how to process sheet metal in your garage. Don't be that guy. This is not a toy, its a surprisingly well designed, compact, sturdy sheet metal processing machine for people who've already used full size versions of these machines and enjoy being able to fabricate small parts quickly. Its not a machine to learn on. I love it and I think it is absolutely worth the money. Its crazy all the things you can do with something this small and lightweight.

The tool arrived well packaged and undamaged. I had a small boat project waiting for it, and the tool arrived needing no immediate adjustment. The sheer worked perfectly on 0.050" aluminum. The slip roller needs some patience, but I think that is typical, especially when making non uniform curves. I can recommend this tool for the advanced hobbyist.

First one I recieved, the roller at the handle broke. Returned thru Amazon and recieved the replacement within a week. After closer examination, the handle that attaches to the roller was loose. Felt like the first one :(. Opened it up to find the retaing bolt was loose. Make sure you check all the other bolts too.. I haven't used it much yet, but this one is working great so far. Seems very sturdy. 👍

I love this little brute. While not being 100% at everything, it does perfectly well for an occasional use tool. I tend to use the rollers at the top the most and have even rolled an 8-ft radius for steel garden edging for my wife with ease. The shear is good and easy to use while the brake for bending is the most awkward. It is heavy duty but easy enough to move if you need more room to work.

Overall, great, little machine for the price. Easy to put together, needs a bit of clean up, works nice for my needs.

The machine, needed some assembly, and adjusting, that I expected, it had grease on it, to keep it from rusting, that also was expected, now it works great, if someone expects it to work right out of the box they won't like it. It's not rocket science but if you're not good with tools you're out of luck.

Used to cut 1mm aluminum and plastic sheets. Just needed a little adjustment to the perpendicularity of the guide.

I got the unit small. But very heavy. 20 kg it said it cut to 20 gauge it does very well like butter. Try it without bolting it down with 1.4mm aluminum to Cut. It cut just need to and more weight to the cutting force and no damage to the blade. Rolling 1.4 mm just had to adjust every time. Customer service is really good. For there end. And there another guy in this review page witch explain it better than me. Thank you for this treally good product

The product is a bit decieving, This unit is probably good for crafts but do not expect a 90 degree bend. Also I have to p[ay shipping to return and I assume this is going to cost me $75 to $100 and I have absolutly no idea on who will take something of this weight.

Versatile and fully functional.

Replaced a similar sized small shear that was useless. Best feature is the spring loaded clamp bar the holds the material while shearing. Only room for improvement would be to add a better means of squaring the work. The brake worked perfectly. Have not used th eroll former yet.

Excellent little machine for my needs