Big pair of Gilbow sheet metal shears

[hutch--]

I thought someone may like this, long ago I owned a pair of 14 inch Footprint crank handle sheet metal shears but some kid while I was at a hobby shop cut a piece of piano wire with them and while I could grind the top damage out, the hard wire scored the inside faces and they always had a notch in them after. I hooked this pair of Gilbow 14 inch shears on eBay for peanuts, sharpened them and they are truly magic for precision cutting sheet metal. These things are a bit like tailors shears in that bigger is better as long as you can cut the shape you want. Among other things they are very useful for cutting shims for tailors shears.

Click on either image to see it full size.


This is the full length image.


This is the detail of the cutting blades.

They would be about 60 years old. I also got a left and right handed pair of Wiss double action shears that will be useful.

[Henry Hall]

Nice. I could find many uses for those. I love the solid look and the thickness of the blades. I have a pair of 'tin snips' (hand sheet-metal cutters), but they have much shorter handles.

[Schneiderfrei]

I love the clean grinding on the blades, nice.

[hutch--]

Henry,

As you live close to the UK, it may be worth trawling eBay to see if a big pair turns up. They usually are not expensive and the post would not be all that high from the UK to where you live. The 2 brand I have seen are Gilbow and Footprint and both work well. God knows who could sharpen them for you though.

[Greger]

Local machine shop should be able to sharpen them. That's what they do is make tools. Which includes making them useful. If they are not sharp how are they useful?

[Henry Hall]

My usual sharpener does tools of all kinds. They did my old hand hedge trimmers and put new life into them.