Cutting and shearing

Three cutting methods are in normal use and they trade differently. Punch shearing removes a slug and leaves two finished ends, at the cost of the slug itself. Single shearing cuts in one stroke with no material loss, but leaves a burr whose direction has to be planned around where the cut face becomes a joint. Saw cutting is the slowest and leaves the cleanest edge, which is what a bolted connection requires. The larger economic question sits underneath all three and concerns nesting rather than the cut: a shop cutting to drawing without a remnant strategy typically scraps around a tenth of its bar, and at copper prices that is usually a larger line item than the labour the machine replaced.