How to Sharpen Guillotine Shear Blades

The following are the major ways of keeping your shearing machine blade sharp, before you use it, you might want to have a look at these metal shear blades sharpening tips:

Before you go out and sharpen your guillotine shear blades, the first figure out if it's sharpening or honing that's really needed. Because you see, the shearing machine blade is very thin at the sharpening edge, and through normal use, it can bend a bit and give you the impression that it's blunt. In such a case, it needs straightening not sharpening. How to do that? Just whisk it against sharpening steel. Alternatively, you can cut aluminum foil several times using it. If after doing that the metal shear blades are still not cutting properly, and by looking at it you can see it’s actually blunt, then you can go ahead and sharpen the blade using any of the methods described below. 

If you don’t have time to sharpen the blade or haven’t sharpened a shear blade before and want to achieve great results, then the best option would be to have a professional do it for you. The first step is to remove the blade from the mount. Removing the little bolts that hold guillotine shear blades using a wrench and then remove the blades.

During the first stage of sharpening guillotine shear blades, mechanics accurately remove all damage and grooves from a paper cutting guillotine blade. Professionals have an extended database of paper cutting guillotine blade bevels, thus ensuring the required and precise positioning of the blade throughout the sharpening service. This enables us to take off only irregular areas (less than half of a millimeter or even less for tungsten carbide blades). Hence after the service, a shearing machine blade has almost the same thickness and can sustain more grinding and sharpening cycles.

However, sometimes even the sheet metal shear blades are sharp, they can feel dull because the sharp edge has been pushed off to the side. To improve the geometry and texture of a surface we hone guillotine shear blades, we use a honing machine with 5 very fine grinding wheels. It is important that though a knife honing is an essential step, it will not repair even the smallest chip. Then, to remove burr after machine grinding, we use ‘oil stone’. Try lubricating the sharpening stone to prevent the accumulation of metal filings on the stone's pores. Ensure that you sharpen the guillotine shear blades evenly. You can do that by maintaining uniform pressure with your hands (particularly the non-dominant one). We apply that stage only to Standard Steel and HSS guillotine shear blades. In general, we noticed, that Tungsten Carbide Blades are very sharp immediately after sharpening.

A shearing machine blade usually has two sides: a flat one and a slanting one. Sharpen only the beveled or rather the slanting side. Before sharpening the shearing machine blade, set the correct sharpening angle. Remember, the sharpening angle should be little, perhaps up to 20°. Hone the blade once you’re done sharpening it to straighten any bent edges. Finally, we check any invisible chips in the ready sharpened guillotine shear blade with a light paper.

As you've seen, how to sharpen guillotine shear blades aren't that difficult after all. If you can’t figure out how to open the cutter and release the metal shear blade, refer to the user manual or contact your blades supplier.

It might be essential to have a spare blade in the store. That way, you’ll ensure that your work doesn’t come to a halt when the shearing machine blade gets dull. By removing the dull blade and replacing it with the sharp one, you can continue with your work, then sharpen the dull one later and keep it in the store. If you’re using the guillotine shear blades for work-related purposes and you normally use it a lot, then you can even keep several spare blades.

Nanjing Jingfeng Knife Manufacturing CO., Ltd. is a professional shear blades manufacturer, providing high-quality and high accurate shearing machine blade and professional guillotine shear blades knowledge. If you have any needs, please contact us.