Shear Luck?

[bobadame]

Follow up on this shear. Neat little machine. Each blade had 4 cutting edges and they had never been flipped or rotated so we did that. The machine was designed to cut a maximum thickness of .060", 1.5mm so clearance from the factory was set at .008". We found a shim behind the top blade which set that clearance. Most of Mel's work is in aluminum less than half that thickness so we added a layer of clear packing tape behind the bottom blade to decrease the clearance another frog hair, give or take. Tested with a .012 thick piece of 6061 and both machine and Mel were happy. Cool design, if it can't be adjusted it come out of adjustment.