Frit-Happens !

Jewellery => Metal and wire => Topic started by: fionaess on January 04, 2017, 05:48:55 PM

Title: Guillotine
Post by: fionaess on January 04, 2017, 05:48:55 PM
Guillotines for metal?  Talk to me about them please
.pros and cons and prices.. What sort should I be looking for?
:)
Title: Re: Guillotine
Post by: JanieD on January 05, 2017, 02:50:38 PM
I have a cheap disc cutter that I got from Amazon for £30 many years ago. It acts like a tin opener, and cuts up to 16g in copper, brass, bronze, aluminium and nickel silver. I find it most useful for cutting nickel as it's so hard! Have never tried cutting discs with it, but it's useful for curves, and I can get a straight line if I'm careful.

When I was a silversmithing student we had a fantastic guillotine, it cut through metal like butter, but these cost a lot of money! You can buy guillotines at Cooksons, but they aren't suitable for large metal sheets.

It depends what you want it for - my little cutter is throatless so I can use any size metal sheet, which is useful as my metal stock is often in 6 foot sheets. When I make my guitar scratchplates I cut a piece from sheet then use a jewellers saw to cut the shape out as then the edges aren't marred.

If money was no object I would love an expensive guillotine, but what I have works for now, and I would rather have a rolling mill if I was going to spend lots of money on another tool for my workshop.

Hope that helps,

Jane
Title: Re: Guillotine
Post by: mizgeorge on January 05, 2017, 07:31:26 PM
I use a bench shear for cutting large strips - Warco is always a pretty good bet for these.

http://www.warco.co.uk/94-Shears
Title: Re: Guillotine
Post by: fionaess on January 05, 2017, 10:58:58 PM
Thank you both for the info..As ever really helpful :)
Title: Re: Guillotine
Post by: fionaess on January 05, 2017, 11:02:44 PM
Those are exactly what Im looking for George..right price ad well.  Do you get an accurate, clean cut?
Title: Re: Guillotine
Post by: mizgeorge on January 06, 2017, 08:53:42 AM
I think I do! You do definitely need to bolt or clamp the shear to a stable surface, and an extra pair of hands can help a lot if you are working with longer pieces and need to move the metal to complete the cut. It's definitely worth having the longer version IMO.
Title: Re: Guillotine
Post by: fionaess on January 06, 2017, 09:45:29 AM
Thanks George