Finally broke down and ordered one of those import Harbor Freight Beverly shear clones. I'd wondered about the quality myself, and it's been asked about here, so I figured I'd give you fellows a full rundown. Bottom line? It's an import piece of s**t. Bottom line, expanded: It's an import piece of s**t, but with a little effort, can be made to work reasonably well. After about two hours of fiddling, mine seems to be pretty decent, but with an issue or two. Pulled it out of the box (where it had broken loose from the styrofoam packing and rattled around a bit- no damage though) and cleaned off the smears of Cosmoline-like grease. Immediate impression: The blades were nowhere near adjusted, and the upper jaw was sloppy and rattled like an old barn door. The two bolts (for the front blade clamp and the one that holds the handle on) are somewhere below Grade 2, and probably in the vicinity of Grade Velveeta. First, remove the lower blade completely, and clean off all the grease. Next, tighten up the two halves of the upper arm. Snug the rear (pivot) bolt first- tighten 'til the slop's near-gone but the arm will still move without too much effort. A little drag is okay, because there's paint in there, and it'll wear loose in about ten minutes. Then snug the front bolt- this one's got a locking nut, so loosen it, tighten the bolt 'til most of the slop is gone, then lock it in place with the nut. Now lube the two bolts and the gear rack. Get sloppy, you're going to have to wipe it off in a few minutes anyway. Now, drop the lower jaw back into place, and see if it sits flat. Mine rocked- the casting was nowhere near flat. I had to put a shim of 20 ga sheetmetal under the rear-left corner of mine. Then use the two adjuster screws (they come through the casting from the left, and you'lln get a little screwdriver in the box) to set the blade to within... oh, I'm guessing about .020" or so. I haven't found an "official" spec yet. Now, my blades are rough ground and were probably done by hand. The lower blade's edge is slightly convex, so the best I can adjust it is to have about 20 thou at the start of the cut, it's nearly touching in the middle of the cut, then it widens back out to 30 or 40 thou at the end of the cut. The casting where the blade wedges into at the back is pretty rough, and the blade will move when you tighten down the clamp. Expect to have to make a couple of tries to get a decent set. My blades are ultra-hard; in fact, so hard they're brittle as gl***, and they've already chipped a couple of times. Order extra blades, and if you have an experienced blacksmith around, you might think about having him draw back a temper on them. I'm going to try and regrind mine, but keep in mind, the upper blade isn't adjustable. Grind it back too far and it'll get close to the edge of the jaw casting. Now, after all that, how does it work? Not bad, actually. Even with the chips in the blade, it cuts fairly nicely. Making a very straight line takes a little work, because the slight curve of the blade wants to make a slightly-curved cut, but if you follow a scribe line, you're okay. It'll sail through 20 ga with almost no effort, and 1/16" with considerable effort, if you keep the cut close to the throat where the most leverage is. That said, while it's functional, and really not all that bad for $90, I think I'm going to save up and get a real, live Beverly B1 from somebody like these guys. Last, after some use, the paint will wear through and the upper arms will loosen up again. Either dismantle the upper arm and wipe the oil/paint residue out, or just zap it with a can of brake cleaner and blow it out. Relube and readjust the bolts. I've adjusted mine twice so far, and all I've done is chop up some small bits of s****. One quickie mod I did: As delivered, the jaws only opened enough to use about 2/3 rds of the blades. I snipped off a bit of the gear rack as shown here: ... With a cutoff wheel. Not much, just an eighth inch or so, and at a slight angle. That allowed the blades to open up a bit more, so as you can see in the top photo, almost all of the blades are usable. As a further mod, both upper jaw pivot bolts are rough machined and in rough drilled holes. There's some definite fore-aft slop as the jaw is worked. I might take the thing back apart, and carefully ream or rebore the holes, then make new bolts to fit the new bores. Oddly enough the bolts are American 7/16-14 thread, so no problems there. Hopefully this'll help anyone interested in picking one up. Doc.
Had a similar experience with a Delta horizontal band saw. After three hours of futzing with it I actually got 90 degree cuts out of it. Seems with a lot of the Chinese tools most of the substance of the thing is OK (OK - not great) and the actual cutting or pressing parts can be made to work with some effort. I take a real long look at these kind of tools before I buy.
thanks for the info , now we know.,,,makes me glad that i have my Beverly B-2 i've been told that the real beverly blades will fit the china units
Great tips. This just shows why foreign countries can build, ship. and sell below american prices. They just disregard tolerances and material specs and make something that RESEMBLES the quality counterpart. You buy it thinking it will do the job and save you a few (or a lot) of bucks ,only to be disappointed. Like this example you can sometimes "re-design/rebuild" a substandard piece and make it serviceable for " hobby level" usage. BUT, if your needing a unit that will stand up to constant usage and do close tolerance repe***ive work do yourself a favor and buy the high end piece. I've had a REAL Beverly shear for over 25 years and with the exception of occasionallly oiling it I've never touched any adjustments on its from the way it was delivered. Still cuts like the first day. Frank
The thing about the Chinese stuff is that they can build quality parts. Don't ***ume from the Harbor Freight junk that everything Chinese is utter ****. They'll build what you want, to what you want to pay. In this case, some company, possibly American, probably sent them a Beverly B1 and said "Can you make these for under $50 each?" And they said, essentially, "Yes, but it's not going to be as good." There are stacks of Chinese goods that are as good, or in many cases better, than their American or European counterparts. You don't see very many of them because they also cost about as much as that American or European part. And if you have a choice between FACOM or Craftsman or some company like Yang-Tzou, if the price is about ther same, you buy the one you've heard of. A Chinese-made Beverly that's as good as a real Beverly, will also cost about as much as a real Beverly. And if it's not substantially cheaper, American buyers will end up buying the American product. So they have to make it cheap. Like the badnsaws- an American brand horizontal bandsaw was pretty much out of reach for most home-shop guys. The imports aren't typically as good, but they're FAR more affordable- and do, after a fashion, actually work. Just like this thing. With a little fiddling, it works. It actually cuts pretty well, chipped blade and all. I've used a real Beverly and this thing is in no way comparable, but it works. Doc.
The thing is that big CHINA stamp on the blade you have to look at it while your working on your AMERICAN iron just a thought tk
The $4 a day labor, no safety laws to conform to, the indexing of Chinese currency to the American dollar, no pollution laws to wrangle with, and an endless supply of labor when the $4/day guy gets electrocuted in an unsafe work environment all help that bottom line. I gotta go put my soapbox away.
Good tool`s make money ! they don`t cost money ! I bought the $350 dollar one 15 years ago from eastwood ! and use it every day and have never had to do anything to it ? a little oil every now and then ? a good tool pays for itself ! now if we could make women do that ?
-You're not kidding. A while back, I saw a whole series of photos taken by a fellow that visited one of the factories in China, where many of the small metal lathes are made. (Like the Grizzly and JET 9" x 20") Large factory, but clearly... what would you call it? Slightly primitive? Workers literally sitting on wooden orange crates, wearing little more than shorts, a T-shirt and sandals. The photo, however, that most clearly illustrated it, was the shot of the paint booth. The castings for the lathes had been machined, masked and primed, and then rolled into a room to be painted. By the way- white for JET, green for Grizzly, red for Harbor Freight, etc, but they're all the same castings, made in the same shop, by the same people. Anyway, the room was just that- a room. Not a properly ventilated paint booth, just the back room somewhere in this factory. Not even any windows. The photo showed one guy in there, wearing a plaid shirt and what looked like polyester slacks... and a dust mask. The thin paper ones held on with a rubber band. That's it. The room was so full of mist and vapors and spray you could barely see the guy and basically couldn't see the back walls, and all he had on for protection was a dust mask. And when he comes down with black lung or something, they'll fire him and hire some other guy in his place.
I used the HF shear at Chopped50ford's house and was impressed with the quality and price. I'm gonna buy one. I don't know if it's something in the air in Yuicaipa but all his cheap *** HF tools worked awesome. I know you get what you pay for and am not knocking your post. But for a hobbyist like me it's all I am ever gonna need. I consider myself a "reformed" tool snob.
I use mine almost every day[it is 3 yrs old]...and I had about the same experiences. I have a tip that is very helpful with these little shears to ease the process a little... Spray a shot of WD-40 on the blades, every time you have a job requiring several cuts,and you will be amazed how much less effort it requires to cut... I am sure it will "live" longer too ,this way.
I've had my Beverly shear for 20 yrs. The plant I work at was throwing it away cause they quit using it. I took it home and it sat for 20 yrs outside. Rusted up. I cleaned it up about a month ago when I started fabbing pieces for the floor of my model A. Works great. Glad I got it .
i got one of these lil shears from HF, and it isnt bad,,, WAY friggin better than usin aircraft snips and struggling with the cut for hours. for the money, and the amount of cutting i do, this thing is perfect of course with most of the above modifications done, altho i didnt experiance the chipping of the blades as of yet, and my jaws opened all the way up right out of the box... yes, i have also heard that the beverly blades will fit these shears as well... anyone actually used the bev. blades in one of these?
Many of these tools are cast/machined/***embled in small home factories using one to twelve employees. I saw a do***entary a few years ago and a guy was throwing pieces of s**** metal into a backyard foundry bucket that was used to melt iron...he tossed in pieces of a bicycle, some galvinized roofing tin and other stuff. In the next shot they showed those big Chinese vises coming out of the sand molds and the narrator commented on the "high-quality castings" coming from the cottage industry shops... I can hear the the workers now..."Hey Long Duck Dong....the metalurgist 'sez to put in one more bicycle and two Hyundai fenders".....
For a little more (but a LOT less than a real Beverly) you all should check out Woodward Fab in Hartland MI. Very well made throatless shears. I found them by Googling "throatless shear".
Gotta bring this one back for a bit and say thanks for the original post. I picked up one of these the other day, I've made it this far without a shear, so I didn't think paying for a Beverly was worthwhile. I had to do everything listed to get mine cutting halfway decent. And a few other things... Mine didn't close all the way OR open all the way, so both end gear teeth had to be trimmed. I had to cut almost half an inch off the blade retainer so it didn't stick way up. Also, I ended up grinding the casting down at the back corner, right to the left of where it says CHINA on the blade. it was sticking up pretty badly, and wouldn't let the material sit anywhere close to flat on the blade. After all that, cuts pretty decent, but I wish I could have justified a real one.
Since it's come back up, I'll give an update: I've only used this one mildly since I got it, a few small projects basically involving lopping bits of small strap iron and t******* corners for some wall-hanging brackets. The blades continue to chip, and now look pretty damned bad at the throat end. They still cut, and none of the chips are "craters", but it's definitely getting worse. I did get in a set of replacement blades- they look like they were made in an entirely different factory, and interestingly enough, don't say "CHINA" on them. (Does on the box, though.) Haven't tried the replacements yet, but I have decided I'm going to save up a bit, and buy an actual Beverly B1 instead. Doc.
I just got the exact same shear for Christmas. I bolted it to the bench lastnight, and tried it out. The handle is loose as hell, but it cuts a hell of a lot better/ faster than my tin snips. I was cutting 16 ga. lastnight, and it goes through it like a hot knife through ****er.
I noticed that the newest Eastwood catalog I received does't show a beverly brand shear for sale any longer. It is now a much cheeper priced throatless shear. I wonder if the cheeper HF shear has caused the real deal to become extinct. That would be a shame. http://www.eastwoodco.com/shopping/...UCT&iMainCat=608&iSubCat=609&iProductID=16441 Brick
I doubt it. More like Eastwood wasn't selling many- or maybe any- of the $700 to $1,300 Beverlys, but were probably flooded with people asking if they had a "cheap version, like that Harbor Freight unit". And since Eastwood already gets a good chunk of their gear from overseas suppliers (not necessarily all Chinese) it was easy to order up a crateload of the knockoffs. And very likely they'll sell twenty $120 imports for every one $700 American unit, so from a business standpoint, it makes sense. Besides, anyone serious enough about sheetmetal work to need or want a real Beverly, isn't going to buy it out of Eastwood. Doc.
Actually, I have little personal experience with the import horizontal bandsaws (usually referred to as cutoff saws, as opposed to vertical/upright bandsaws.) I've heard horror stories; one guy bought one from a local warehouse, it went bad in short order, they replaced it, THAT went bad, and so he hand selected one from their stock, by opening up the drive gearbox to look for damage, shavings, chips and contaminated oil. He said he had to open up three to find one that wasn't full of junk. (Internet anecdote.) On the other hand, I've heard from several people that the small $150 JET/HF/Etc. saws are good for the price- cheap enough that the mod and repairs needed to the "kit" are worthwhile. I've been looking at one of the Grizzly or JETs in the $600 to $800 range. Most of these seem to have decent reputations, but again it's all hearsay. I haven't tried one myself. In my opinion, Grizzly would be one of the better choices to buy from. It'll cost a bit more than out of Harbor Freight, Northern Hydraulics or the like, but I think they have better customer service and a better supply of repair/replacement parts. I have a Grizzly vertical mill, a Bridgeport clone, that I'm quite happy with. Very good quality for the money, and as accurate as I've ever needed it. That said, personally I'm looking into buying an old, broken Wells brand horizontal saw, an American brand from the sixties. I'd rather fix that than a cheap import. Doc.
Now you're on the right track . I would much rather buy a used american made piece of equipment than a new chinese made POS. If you do a little searching used equipment can be found for reasonable prices. There is a ton of web sites that sell used equipment and of course there's alway ebay. Most of my tools are american made that I have bought used. You might have to do a little clean up or rebuild but once you're done, it will most likely last a lifetime. From what I have read here and on other sites you usually have to do a bunch of work on the chinese **** to get it to work right. So whats the difference? Plus if you ever decide to sell, with american made stuff, you will usually get most of your money back. I don't thick there will ever be much of a demand for used chinese made tools .
i have one, no problems. A little sloppy, but the blades cut w/out chipping. I like it and its a time saver.
The Jalopy Journal
