Replies

1. 
   Faulted1 | Apr 17, 2005 01:23am | #1

   Regarding shears:

   I used the following and found it better (no dust!, quick and easy) than the saw blades-

   http://www.snappershear.com/Steelhead/index.htm

2. 
   Fishrite | Apr 17, 2005 01:24am | #2

    

   At my store, we have been selling the heck out of the Porter Cable shears.  Also there are many siding jigs out there that really help the job go faster.

    

    

1. 
   Kyle | Apr 17, 2005 01:52am | #4

   Can you tell me more about the siding jigs?

1. 
   DDay | Apr 17, 2005 01:58am | #5

   He probably is referring to the siding gauges that malco and a few others make.

   http://malco.malcoproducts.com/howto/fibercementsiding.asp

1. 
   Shoeman | Apr 17, 2005 02:21am | #6

   Anyone have experience with the Malco shears that attach to your drill?

   http://malco.malcoproducts.com/howto/fibercementsiding-high.asp

   I would guess they probably don't work quite as well as a dedicated shears, but, hey, you never know

1. 
   Shoeman | Apr 17, 2005 02:22am | #7

   Thanks for all the quick responses.

2. 
   DDay | Apr 17, 2005 02:27am | #8

   Saw the demo at a JLC show.  They cut slower than the regular shears and I believe they are $70.  If I remember, the cut looked ok, maybe not as clean as the regular shears but close.  For the faster cut and to have a tool that is dedicated to cutting the hardie, I would rather the snappers.

3. 
   joeh | Apr 17, 2005 07:14am | #11

   I have a similar Malco gizmo that is for cutting sheetmetal. Works great. Seems it was about $40. If I was using it daily, I think I'd be wishing I'd spent the bucks for the real deal.

   I don't know if $70 for the Malco hardi cutter would be a good investment unless you were doing a small one time only job. I have the PC shears and they are definitely worth the price.

   Joe H

3. 
   DDay | Apr 17, 2005 01:49am | #3

   I have the steelhead snapper shears too, they work great.  They'll cut the siding very easily and dustless.  The cutting head on the porter cable is the same as the steelhead cutting head, both are made by snapper shear.  The snapper shears and the porter cable have reversable blades so you'll get longer blade life, I don't think the blades on the kett are reversable.  The porter cable shears are the body of a porter cable drill, the snapper are on a milwaukee drill body and nearly everyone would agree that milwaukee make a far superior drill.  Also porter cable was bought by dewalt last summer so who knows if they will keep making the shears or if you'll be able to get parts, etc. in the future.

   You can also you circ's with diamond hardie blades or a fiber cement circ that makita makes that is suppose to work well.  The regular circ's will put off a ton of dust which make for a long long day, even with dust masks.  The makita is suppose to be almost 100% dust free but you need to use is with a vacuum for that, which limits the area of use.  The only advantage the circs have is that they can cut 4 or 5 pieces at the same time whereas the shears cut 1 piece at a time.

4. 
   Brian | Apr 17, 2005 02:31am | #9

   Looking at shears myself, but today on TV (this old house?) I saw a hydraulic? press that looked like it would pivot like a siding table, but was designed for FC siding.  Slide the siding in, press a button, and your done.  It looked like the tool to have if you do a lot of FC.

   Does anyone know what these are?  Price? Experience?

1. 
   DDay | Apr 17, 2005 04:06am | #10

   The are made by snapper shear.  Their are two versions, the one you saw that has extension wings and is air powered, those are $1200.  And there is also a manual shear that is similar but no extension table, that one is around $500 or $600.  They do look nice but you need to be a siding installer to justify that type of price.

   http://www.snappershear.com/catalog.htm#SS110A