Guillotine

I would appreciate the opinions of readers of the bench top guillotine, on the market by machine dealers advertising in MEW and ME magazines. Are they any good at all ?. I have an angle grinder and several pairs of tin shears, would i be wasting my money ?. John

All depends on your expectations of the equipment, my idea of good is my mates idea of rubbish, tell us what you plan on doing with it.

Is this the sort of thing that you are asking about.

Don't use a guillotine if you want the metal to be flat afterwards. OK for cutting boiler plates and clearing but no good for brass clock plates. " 'Orses for courses"

Or one of the scissor style?

Those are a lot easier on the hands than snips and will cut 3mm steel, even the short one with a handle extension.

The waste is quite curved

Edited By Dave Halford on 09/11/2021 21:02:04

Unless planning to cut very thin stuff, personally I find an angle grinder with a really thin cutting wheel ( e.g. 1mm ) does the job quickly and with minimal distortion ( if you let it cut at its natural feed i.e. without pushing too hard). A quick rub of the file afterwards is all thats required for any small burr.

Added benifit is not taking up valuable workshop space!

regards Mike

Downsides: slow, noisy, expensive, dirty, horrible burrs, long straight cuts require extra finishing etc, etc. I'd much rather straighten any distortion from a guillotine if one is available.

Perfectly valid points, but I suppose it also depends on how much sheet metal work you are actually doing. If like me, it's just the occasional job and you have limited workshop space you make do with what is to hand & I usually end up doing my cutting outside. (remembering to cut away from the kitchen double glazing this time! The upvc window ledge still shows the battle scars from a couple of years ago when the grind sparks left dozens of tiny burns all over it - was most unpopular with 'er indoors! )

In an ideal world we would all probably like to have a large workshop crammed with all manner of sparkly kit, but we muddle on regardless.

All the best, Mike

Edited By Mike Hurley on 10/11/2021 10:37:35

Benchtop shears do produce a curved portion, where the material is unsupported (unlike the front portion which is supported by the stationary blade. )

The straightness, or otherwise, of the cut is determined by the skill of the operator!

A true guillotine is less prone to this since the shearing action is applied by a straight blade with a tapered edgee which moves vertically, rather than in an arc.

In the home workshop, and in the smaller industrial sizes, they are likely to be hand or foot powered (Keep your other foot well clear of the treadle! ) In industry, the larger sizes are powered and capable of shearing quite large thicknesses.

If I had the space, I would opt for a straight blade guillotine, but accept the curved cut from substantial bench shears, and do any required panel beating afterwards, if I cannot avoid the work being on the "free" side of the blades.

Howard

For sheet metal (aluminium and mild steel) I swear by a Gabro 2M2 nibbler, and a pneumatic nibbler for curves. A Shetack saw can also be useful in some instances.

Above that, a cutoff wheel in a grinder of one sort or another.

Cheers, Colin

I am waiting for a bench scissor type shear to be delivered from Poland. I hope it is very good for one or two inches of cut and useful for work up to 3 inches on 1mm mild steel and 2mm copper. For softer materials I expect to bash them flat again on a bench block with a leather mallet.

I hope it is an improvement over my 12"+ pair of Gillbows (which cope with difficulty but will still be useful for longer cuts).

No noise, no dust, no electrics. Easier to enjoy.

Probably more silver smithing type application than engineering.

Edited By jaCK Hobson on 10/11/2021 12:43:08

Edited By jaCK Hobson on 10/11/2021 12:43:29

I don't have a guillotine or a decent brake, because like you, I don't have any space for them. Most of my projects are cars(1936 Morris 8 hotrod in the planning stage) so those and sliprolls would be high on my list of wants if I did acquire space for them. I must finish the benchtop wheeling machine I started several years ago.

My plasma cutter is handy, but requires a compressor and that is dying.

Air tools like grinders, drills, sanders etc are horrible to use even with a large and powerful compressor.

Nibblers are an abomination.

I also have rusty uPVC sills, and one of the doors has Caspian Blue overspray.....

Edited By Nicholas Wheeler 1 on 10/11/2021 14:00:18

Back again folks, the guillotine is one similar to the picture John P posted, thanks for that John. I would like it to cut ex washing machine, cooker, and fridge sides which I hack out using my angle grinder, ready for making a cabinets for another WS projects. John

Posted by john fletcher 1 10/11/2021 14:00:51

Back again folks, the guillotine is one similar to the picture John P posted, thanks for
that John. I would like it to cut ex washing machine, cooker, and fridge sides which
I hack out using my angle grinder, ready for making a cabinets for another WS
projects. John
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I use mine sometimes for recycling old washing machine or tumble drier
sheet metal it cuts it very well.

The formit that i have is the 24" version like all stuff from China it is
made down to a price ,i have had mine since about 2001 and it has been
used regularly ,these things will never be as good as a proper guillotine/box
folder and roller but for the price and the compactness are good value.
Some other photos here shows this mounted on this floor stand which
provides some additional support to the lower blade it was made from
some scrap 4" angle iron welded as a box below the lower blade as
can be seen.
It cuts the full width of 1.2 mm sheet steel and will cut stainless i find it
helps if the blades are smeared with Trefolex, very little curl or distortion
to the work and with care have rolled some 2mm sheet steel about 8 inch wide
into a 25 inch drum.

John

View from front of lower blade the two bolts apply a little pressure to the front of the blade ,the single bolt provides some additional support below the blade.

View from the rear of the machine

Had an accident with this trying to fold some 1/8 steel the end bolt was not tight and twisted and broke the casting ,Warco have some spares re-tapped both holes and fitted some longer better quality bolts.

If you buy a guiolltine dont leave a good steel rule on the work tabe there are a lot of short rules in toolboxes,

I bought a s/hand good bench shear with a long handle, its useful but it will curl up the sheet,I only use it a couple of times a year,I went to a sale with a friend who owned an engineering business ,I was looking at a 4ft treadle guiolltine when my friend commented that it would only cut sheet metal,then he pointed to a large industrial Do All bandsaw ,American design built under licence by GH Alexander, and commented that saws like that are far more useful and can do a lot more varied work, really good advice,it turned out to be essentially a toolmakers bandsaw,table tilts in both directions max capacity in steel 6 inches thick, I have cut 4 inch bar ,thin work stays flat and it has a reasonble throat size plus all the attachments,Blade welder incorporated in the machine.and it gets a lot of use.One of those good buys.

Talking of saws I'm very impressed with the Makita DCS552 18 volt battery metal cutting circular saw that I got almost on a whim a few months back when a significant discount offer floated past. I already ahs several 18V Makita tools so didn't need a battery and charger, just the bare body which was way cheaper than the full fat offer with case, battery, charger et al.

**LINK** https://makitauk.com/product/dcs552z

I did have to make a guide for it. Surprisingly not included in the box. I suspect the standard accessory option is the unit common to other Makita circular saws and thus not suitable for materials thinner than about 1/4". My version actually extends slightly above the soleplate so no job is too thin.

Very effective at slicing down 3 m x 2 m alloy treadplate. Albeit with a full length fence clamped to the material.

Agree with Nigel McBurney about the usefulness of a big bandsaw. Mine is a14" varispeed Startright. With bandsaws throat depth is always the primary limitation closely followed by the sheer space taken up by an industrial standard one. In general the hobby breed are well out of their comfort zone when metal cutting.

Getting back to affordable import guillotines and shears expect "some" fettling and tweaking to be needed for "acceptable" performance. Where "acceptable" and "some" are elastic, user specific, concepts. The 3 in 1 units in particular still sail perilously close to the old "kit with all major machining work done supplied mostly assembled so we don't have to translate instructions for final assembly and fettling" reputation. Although you'd be very unlucky to get one that won't work at least "sort of OK" given a bit of care there is no doubt that spending a day or so fetlling, sorting and getting things just so can transform performance into something that just works. Even at Chinese labour rates that sort of extra care is unaffordable which is why its not done at the factory.

Objectively I'm unimpressed by my 4 pairs of Gilbows, left and right hand in 6" and 10" sizes. I am impressed by my cheap aviation tin snip set, straight, left & right hand, got from Machine Mart many years ago wich work well on thin material. Hnad type nibblers are hand killers. Mine is very much a desperation tool.

Clive