How Do You Cut Thin Sheet Metal

To cut straight lines use an electric saw.

How do you cut thin sheet metal.

As you cut one side of the sheet metal will ride up and over the lower jaw. How to cut thin sheet metal and keep it flat. Cut steel between 16 gauge and 8 gauge with an electric jigsaw with a metal cutting blade or with a hacksaw. Then grip the saw with both hands and push the blade through the metal to cut it.

Start by taping both sides of the sheet metal directly over the line you want to cut and clamp the metal to a work station so it doesn t move. Simply line up your chisel along the line you are going to cut and strike the back of it with a hammer. For thinner gauge metal you may want to use a piece of scrap wood as backing so that the stainless steel sheet does not bend during cutting. If you ve got a lot of straight cutting to do buy tin snips like the one shown in photo 4.

Such as straight cut snips left cut the right cut etc. Using a chisel and hammer is the most basic form of cutting sheet metal. Cut metal with your circular saw. These photo steps show that it can be done using a utility knife.

They look like scissors and work fine with sheet metals like brass aluminum tin steel etc. Tin snips or aviation snips are one of the most widely used tools to cut sheet metals. If you ve hit it hard enough the chisel will cut the sheet metal if it s thin enough. The illustrations are for a small bracket but i have cut 3 foot.

Step 2 clamp your steel to a work bench or sawhorse. It cuts metal almost as easily as a scissors cuts paper. If you use metal shears to cut thin sheet metal such as duct metal it curls and can be difficult to flaten properly. And the long blades make it easy to cut straight and leave a smooth edge.

You can cut mild steel up to about 3 8 in. There are some cuts that you can do with decent tin snips. Thick using a ferrous metal cutting blade. Hot metal chips will fly everywhere.