The shear strength of discontinuities is strongly influenced by the roughness and the normal stress applied, as well as other properties of the discontinuities. Their assessment is of vital importance in underground excavation projects, slope stability, tunnels, foundations and other types of rock engineering activities. The main purpose of this work was the development of a conventional direct shear equipment to determine the shear strength of unfilled rock discontinuities at laboratory scale. Normal force and shear force were applied with servo controlled hydraulic actuators. The devices for measuring loads and vertical and horizontal displacements are coupled to the actuators. The data acquisition controller converts the mechanical and electrical signals into digital data. The data was recorded at the desired intervals on a computer. Shear tests were performed on artificial and natural joints of two types of gneiss, the Microcline gneiss and the Plagioclase biotite hornblende gneiss, common rocks in the southern region of Rio de Janeiro city. The results showed a variation in the roughness pattern, with a decrease of the dispersion with the increase of the samples size, the natural joints presented a greater dispersion in results than the artificial joints. The resistance parameters obtained experimentally were then compared with the resistance parameters obtained through the empirical method of Barton and Choubey (1977) and also with data found in the literature. The results obtained are satisfactory, validating the developed equipment.