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Pneumatic Nibbler vs. Shear
I purchased a pneumatic nibbler a while back for doing small sheetmetal work. I like the fact that it doesn't warp the material (a problem I have when using manual shears) and makes cutting curves a piece of cake.
After using it only a couple of times, I found one major downside--all those tiny sharp crescent moon-shaped pieces of metal that are nibbled off seem to find their way into everything! Even months later, I keep finding them embedded in everything from my shoes and work clothes to the foam pads I use when crawling under the car. It drives me nuts, and they're SHARP! I typically cut non-magnetic material like SS and aluminum, so cleanup isn't super simple either.
This got me to thinking--would a pneumatic shear be a better general purpose sheetmetal tool? I haven't enjoyed using manual shears, but pneumatic shears seem like they might work better and be cleaner than using my nibbler. The potential downsides I see with shears are the somewhat limited cutting capacity and cutting radius as compared to the nibbler.
Would anyone with more sheetmetal experience care to chime in?
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