Wife bought me this thing as a B-Day present several years ago, and I really like it. Use it lot to fab up brackets and small panels.
At the time I thought they had the wrong guy, but my wife quickly interceded and told me that the call was about my early birthday present -
Since I was to be out of town over the next month so, my wife and daughter decided to give me my present early.
I truly believed I was living in the Twilight Zone; ------ MY WIFE WAS NOW SHOPPING AT ENCO!!! You could have pushed me over with a feather.
So how did she know what to buy? She won't tell me. Suffice it to say that I picked up the crate, and per my wife's insistence, I can't open it up until she gets home from work this evening. I've been a "good boy" and haven't peaked, nor have I examined the shipping documents. All I know is that's it weighs about 300lbs.
Had to use my hoist to get if off the truck. Stay tuned for the unveiling this evening.
My wife was full of surprises, and after all these years of ties, sweaters, and yuppie gifts, my wife and daughter both are shopping at places that I actually liked.
LOL -- Jeez you guys can't give a guy a break to enjoy his evening celebration.
We invited a few people over for some pizza, beer, and to smoke a few cigars. She made a small cake to top off the evening. We heated up the garage and I spent a few good hours with some old gear head friends who stopped in after work. It was too short because everyone had to get home and get ready for the DC Beltway slog tomorrow morning.
Anyway, the Yuengling beer was cold, the Dominican Montecruz Belicoso cigars were smooth, and the pizza was made by a local guy who makes Brooklyn style pies -- NICE!!
The notcher was unveiled between the cake and the cigars --
The table had a real smooth grind, and the guides were perfect --
Cosmoline style grease was everywhere; to the point that the arm and mechanism binds from all the gum and gunk. I'll have a lot of cleaning to do tomorrow evening.
Overall, the machine is an excellent buy, but it is a direct ripoff from a venerable older American Di-Arco design
http://www.diacro.com/metal-forming/hand-operated-tab-notcher.phpThis machine really takes right angle notching to another level --
Finally was able to clean the cosmoline and align the blades. Underneath all that gunk is a pretty good looking machine. The castings are very passable and the blades align perfectly once the grease is cleaned from the guides.
Blades are well finished and ground.
I mounted the machine over the left leg of my workbench. Because it need to overhang quite a bit to let sheetmetal clippings drop out the bottom, I secured the base of the notcher to some 2x4 cribbing underneath the bench; so the four 5/8" mounting bolts pass through the 3/4" benchtop and through another 1-3/4" of cribbing. That should hold it very secure when notching 18ga steel. The machine will do 16ga, but i don't see any of that work happening soon in my shop.
