Ironworker - How It Works

The ironworker is like a large scissor - that can cut up to 1"x12" metal. It is built up individual tubes - the 1/2"x4"x4" square tubing - 3 layers of - pivoting around a fulcrum - and driven by a hydraulic cylinder mounted to one end of the machines. The shear is on the cylinder side of the ironworker machine, and a hole puncher is found on the other side.

The point of this machine is that you can shear or punch up to 1" thick metal in seconds - as opposed to minutes by drilling or otherwise cutting.

The machine is made from tubing with 1/2" plates bonding the tubing together. We use our Stock Tubing, stock plates, and Stock Pivot Plates.

The cylinder is mounted through 1" holes on the stock plates.

The trick to doing this successfully, with nonprecision stock steel, is to make sure that after the pivot plates are mounted, there is no motion of any of the plates. To achieve this, a number of bolts are used to clamp the pates down.

A 3" pin is used in the middle of the machine.

The only precision part of the mahine has to be the blade mounting, which has to have a 5-10 thousandths spacing between the blades. To achieve this, proper spacers must be used, and 2" wide plates on the side are used to mount the blade.

The punch element is stiff-mounted, and the bottom die of the punch element can be adjusted for precision fit.