[TheForge] Heavy floor shear

[Peter Hirst]

I have been offeed a monster machine that I would love to have and know something about.  It is a huge (400 lbs or so) cast iron shear.  Stands about 6 feet tall to the end of the handle, which is itself about 3 feet long.  Base is two arches with 1/2" bolt holes in the feet.  Body is about 6" thick.  Scissor type blades are about 8" long and open to 1/2" or a little more.  Body has a neat taper in it right at the blades, so it looks like it could take a continuous long feed of sheet or slitting thick flat stock.  I has some recent welded-on modifications arouind the throat, as if it was set up to feed 1/4 x 4 perfectly square across the blades.  I plan to remove that, and aside from that it looks perfect.  I plan to use it in my historic, off the grid shop, as it looks like it can handle just about anything up to 1/2 or maybe 5/8.  Save a lot of hacksawing and hot cutting.  Anybody ever see or use a shear like this?  Anything I should know about it?

Keziah