[Amps] Chassis construction question

[Will Matney]

The nibbler I have I use occasionally for square or irregular holes. I know this, it gives your hand a good workout, especially in steel. The next one I'm going to get is an air powered one. There's actually three tools I'm for sure going to get. An air nibbler, air pop-riveter, and an air shear. The shears cut with three blades making a thin strip come up as scrap. They dont bend the material that way on each side of the blades. The blades are arranged with two fixed on the outside and the moving center one. The nibbler works the same as a hand type but fast. The pop-riveter is really easy, just one pull of a trigger and you here the pop. That's very good when using say 3/16-1/4" pop-rivets. Companies like Harbor Freight has some good deals on the import types.

The best deal I've got was a new 1/2" electric impact wrench at Big Lots for $20. You talk about running a chassis punch through with no sweat, it does it. I don't know if they have anymore of them as other places has them for around $50 to $75 each. I used to dread punching holes of larger diameters, especially when I had a bunch to do. You punch say twelve 1-3/16" dia. holes at one sitting and your arm gets pretty tired using a wrench. Heck, using the electric impact, you can zip through a 3" hole like a knife through hot butter. The only bad part is having to drill all the starter holes for the bolt. Those cone bits does a good job here though.

I seen at Harbor Freight, they have a 24" pan-box brake that mounts on the bench for $199. That would pretty much handle anything an amateur wanted to make in chassis or cabinets.

Best,

Will


*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 8/1/05 at 10:28 PM Dr. William J. Schmidt, II wrote:

>You got a round nibbler tool?
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Dr. William J. Schmidt, II  K9HZ
>Trustee of the North American QRO - Central Division Club - K9ZC
>
>Email: bill at wjschmidt.com
>WebPage: www.wjschmidt.com
>
>"If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a committee;
>that 
>will do them in."  -- Bradley's Bromide
>
>
>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "John Bodine/K2UBG" <k2ubg at earthlink.net>
>To: <amps at contesting.com>
>Sent: Monday, August 01, 2005 8:33 PM
>Subject: Re: [Amps] Chassis construction question
>
>
>> Tough to control, oh yeah when that forstner digs in and you are using
>it 
>> freehand;  the work goes one way and your shoulder goes the other way. 
>> What ever happened to the nibbler tool? I've still got one in the tool 
>> box...
>>
>> John/K2UBG
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