Abstract: A shearing device which uses an in-line design wherein bearings are aligned with the moving blade so that lever arm forces are not produced between the movable blade and a fixed blade. This provides for highly accurate and clean cuts of printed circuit boards. The fixed lower blade is vertically oriented to provide clearance on both front and back portions for placement of tooling means to hold printed circuit boards in the shear to minimize scrap cut from the boards. Additionally, the clearance provided by the vertically oriented lower blade allows for zero space cutting of the printed circuit boards adjacent components mounted on the printed circuit boards. An optical curtain is also used which is directly aligned with the movable upper blade so that obstructions can be detected directly in the path of movement of the upper blade.