There are two ways, at Uni-Hydro Inc., you have your choice.
Sever Shearing Angle Iron without a loss of material.
Type X brand of hydraulic ironworkers have V shaped blades built into the machines body. Usually a stationary blade that does not move is held in a frame that is closest to the feed side of the machine and the cutting blade is mounted into a moving part of the machine, so when you feed a piece of angle iron through both blades, the moving part shears the piece of angle iron in two pieces.
This type of shearing is great if you have a 10 foot long piece of angle iron and you want to end up with 10 pieces of angle iron at 1 foot. That’s the good news, but the possible draw back is if the machine does not have strength enough to shear the whole piece at one time.
I am unaware of a type of machine built in such way that will shear the whole piece at one time and in addition, shearing blades are not at a true V to match the V of a piece of angle iron.
With Sever Shearing, the blades are flattened a little so the material is being slightly peeled and the tops of the V of the angle iron are bent outwards, more like a seagull wing look. The other thing is that if this style of machine only has one V shear, it usually can give you a great looking sheared end of either thin material or thick material, or a medium that neither a thin material or thick material looks good at all.
There are however, a few machines with several angle shear blades built in that looks like a Z pattern where the upper part of the Z (more vertical, then horizontal, the vertical layout) has the blade edges tapered for thick material and the bottom part tapered for thin material. This layout is called a LEG UP / LEG DOWN SEVER ANGLE SHEAR. These do a better job and with tapering the blades to the thickness types of the leg down or leg up, they can keep the blades at a little more to a true V to match the V of the angle shear and produce a more quality look sheared edge.
Either way, the biggest part of any sever type shearing structure, is that you have to have the hold down adjusted to each length of the V. If you are shearing 3 inch angle iron, not the length, but the length of a leg of the angle iron and to a 2 inch legged angle iron, you must adjust the hold down 1 inch more down or the material will lift which may crack blades, but most certainly, give you a horrible looking cut.
Slug Type Angle Shear
When the original Hydraulic Ironworker was patented and started to be manufactured in 1949 by my Grandfather, Joe Dvorak, known as The Dvorak Ironworker, part of the machine had an arm that operated a housing that contained angle blades and to change the blades, the blades came out the back side of the housing where that plate was split. It was known as the “ split back angle shear ”. This was the first of it’s kind and was deemed a Slug Type Angle Shear that was a five blade design having a upper spade blade and four bottom blades that made up the V pattern.
It is called a slug drop angle shear as every time it stroked, you lost from 5/16 to 3/8 of a piece of angle iron. Some say this type of angle shear is a draw back as unlike the sever angle shear, you will not get 10 pieces of 1 foot length pieces out of a 10 foot long piece of angle iron.
However, this style has no hold down and you can only have a perfect straight cut every time. Anyone who attempts to shear a piece of angle iron with a slug type angle shear, will be able to perform the job with the results being straight at both ends of the now sheared angle iron, no matter size, thickness, offset legged, if it’s angle iron, it’s straight.
The first time in history. . . The Explanation:
This Angle Shear (and machine) was developed by Joe Dvorak to speed up their own business at the time which was making rafters. One of the designs of the Dvorak Rafter needed 2 inch angle with a 45 degree end. Each piece needed the 45 degree end in the opposite direction. The design of this slug type angle shear was created to do both the shearing of angle iron and also having the ability to miter the end of an a piece of angle iron at 45 degrees.
The gap between the lower blades allows the user to enter the piece of angle iron at a 45 degree angle, stuffing the leg side of the end of the angle iron into the gap and when sheared not only gives you a 45 degree on the end, but half shears the other leg so if you have to pieces of angle iron and do one from one side and the other from the other piece of angle iron, you get a corner, like a picture frame with no gap as the leg ends that come together that are not having the 45 degree cut, has the half sheared ends that allows the angle iron to form tightly. This is pure genius.
The original Dvorak Ironworkers had a maximum angle shear capacity of 2 x 2 x 1/4. It was upped to 3x3x1/4 by the company that purchased the patents to the original Dvorak Ironworker.
In 1974, my father, Jim Dvorak, saw his own patents for a hydraulic ironwork approved and The Uni-Hydro Ironworker was created and started.
In 1980, my father Jim Dvorak, redesigned the slug type angle shear from the old split back 5 blade style to a 3 blade all welded construction as the driving blade, front stationary blade, spacer and guides came out the top of the housing. His capacity went to 3 x 3 x 3/8 because of improvement in strength for blade support. Needless to say, any company using this style of slug drop angle shears, quickly copied his improvement.
A Uni-Hydro Ironworker strength:
With Uni-Hydro being the strongest hydraulic ironworker on earth, here is what Uni-Hydro offers their end users. A CHOICE, yes, a choice of either having a slug drop angle shear or a sever angle shear.
The slug drop angle shear is explained just above. The Uni-Hydro Way.
Because of Uni-Hydro’s strength, a housing was created, we call this the Universal Housing. Once you purchase a Universal Housing, you can put different structural shearing blades in the housing, swapping between angle blades, channel, rod and different designs. For right now, let’s just complete angle shearing.
Once you have your housing and then purchase Uni-Hydro Sever Angle Blades, the Uni-Hydro Sever blades are a true V which means when the blades come into contact of the V of the angle iron, there is no air gap between the merge. We take the whole angle at one time. The sheared edges of both pieces are perfectly straight. The power to do this is even and especially in smaller tonnage machines is unheard of unless you’re a Uni-Hydro Ironworker Owner.
It is however true with Uni-Hydro’s sever shear. It also has a hold down and must be adjusted up or down to the length of piece of angle iron leg. However, with the hold down of Uni-Hydro, you can the hold down cross bar just high enough to push the angle iron through the blades without having to lock down tight each and every stroke to shear angle iron. You can set a back stop up and push the angle iron to it, step on the pedal, shear it, push forward, step on the pedal, shear it and well you get the picture.
This setup, is genius, from my father, Jim Dvorak, who has more hydraulic ironworker patents and patent claims than any other human who has ever lived or alive today. He will be long known as the true man of steel.
Chuck Dvorak
Owner
Uni-Hydro Inc.