[TheForge] Bar Shear

[Ries Niemi]

The shears in the Bealer book are kinda like most things bealer- a 
little blurred with a layer of BS, romantic memories, and the game of 
telephone- since bealer was not a blacksmith, or any kind of 
metalworker, his knowledge was all what he was told, and some of those 
old boys liked to pull his leg.
Both of those shears are closed throat- so they wont cut any pieces 
bigger than the throat depth. They are built this way in an attempt to 
get compound leverage on the handles, to make it a little easier to cut 
with them. Edwards and others invented much better compound leverage 
systems back in the 1880's, so I can only guess these shears were made 
by backwoods guys who didnt know any better. And both of them, even 
though they have relatively long throats, are primarily for cutting 
small round and square bar, and small flats, as even with the compound 
leverage, the 6 foot long handle he mentions, he says they are only 
good for up to 1/4".
Also, It is extremely unlikely the average smith he talked to would 
have had a 12" x 6" x 1/2" piece of high carbon steel they would be 
willing to use for this, and since they dont have removable blades, my 
guess is they were mild steel, and therefore not that hard.
The simple open throat modern design, with removable tool steel blades, 
like the Jet or knuth bench shears, is a much better design for light 
stuff. And easy enough to copy with mild steel plate for the body, and 
tool steel blades.
For cutting big round and square, and big flat bar, you really need 
something like an edwards no. 2, which is a massive casting, tool steel 
blades, and compound leverage, often with geared teeth. And bolt it 
down, and use at least a 6 foot handle.  You can often find a used 
edwards for 200- 600 bucks.
The other type of design to look at might be a rod parter- these are 
made just to cut round bar, kind of like the little bolt snippers on a 
pair of wire strippers. Di-acro and roper whitney both still make rod 
parters for up to 5/8" round. The basic design is used in the rod and 
square bar shears on an ironworker, and you can buy shear modules like 
this from either msc for their funky little metalmuncher ironwork, or 
from scotchman. Then you could build a hydraulic jack press to use them.

ries