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Sea Jay 500 Throatless Nibbler

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awemawson:
Having played around using the Bridgeport Slotting head as a nibbler, I had 'sort of' resolved to mount one of my hand held nibblers 'up side down' in a cabinet to hopefully make it more controllable. Most of my sheet work is 1.2 mm galvanised, but the job that had triggered this was actually 2 mm aluminium.

Casting around for something to mount it, I came across a rather rusty 'Sea Jay 500 Throatless Nibbler' on ebay. I thought that at least it would be a basis to build one round. Only specified up to 1.5 mm steel, but hey, we're mad modders aren't we.  :lol:

The price wasn't actually too bad at £210 but it looked a wreck and the seller wouldn't shift his price. Casting around for details of the unit I came across another one in a dealers at a much higher price (£360) but in a far more sanitary condition, so I told him if he'd match the price of the one on ebay I'd buy it. He did, and it arrived on a pallet yesterday  :ddb:

awemawson:
So straight to it, put power on and try it  :clap: Seems to work rather well  :thumbup:

The trouble with hand held nibblers is not only are they rather uncontrollable, they put loads of nasty sharp crescents of swarf all over the floor  :bugeye:

Not this one - it tidies up and put them safely into a drawer  :lol:

awemawson:
Now nothing is perfect, and when you buy machine tools unseen you must expect to have to sort 'issues'. This is a very simple machine, but I did notice that the table was distorted, such that if you put a guide bar across it, the work would slip under it !!!

So time to start pulling it apart to flatten the table. Table  is 3 mm steel plate with C section bars welded to it front to back - the weakness being the slot cut in the table that takes a sliding pivot when cutting circles. It is bolted on to four substantial pillars of a rather complicated design

drmico60:

--- Quote from: awemawson on November 15, 2014, 06:09:08 AM ---Having played around using the Bridgeport Slotting head as a nibbler, I had 'sort of' resolved to mount one of my hand held nibblers 'up side down' in a cabinet to hopefully make it more controllable. Most of my sheet work is 1.2 mm galvanised, but the job that had triggered this was actually 2 mm aluminium.

--- End quote ---

I have mounted a hand held nibbler upside down in a table. This makes it much easier to cut straight lines and do more precision work. My portable drill mounted nibbler is probably not man enough for thick sheet but I find it very useful. More details are here:
http://mikesworkshop.weebly.com/a-nibbler-table.html
Mike

awemawson:
So having removed the table and put it on the steel welding bench, expecting to have to apply violence, strangely the distortion had largely gone  :scratch:

I presume that there are stresses applied by the mounting that are pulling it out of shape

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