How Do You Cut Thin Sheet Metal

It cuts metal almost as easily as a scissors cuts paper.

How do you cut thin sheet metal.

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. Simply line up your chisel along the line you are going to cut and strike the back of it with a hammer. They look like scissors and work fine with sheet metals like brass aluminum tin steel etc. You can cut mild steel up to about 3 8 in.

These photo steps show that it can be done using a utility knife. Then grip the saw with both hands and push the blade through the metal to cut it. Hot metal chips will fly everywhere. In our test it cut through rebar like a hot knife through butter.

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. If you ve hit it hard enough the chisel will cut the sheet metal if it s thin enough. It may not be an obvious choice but fitted with the right blade a circular saw is a great metal cutting tool. There are some cuts that you can do with decent tin snips.

Step 2 clamp your steel to a work bench or sawhorse. How to cut thin sheet metal and keep it flat. Thick using a ferrous metal cutting blade. Tin snips or aviation snips are one of the most widely used tools to cut sheet metals.

Such as straight cut snips left cut the right cut etc. If you use metal shears to cut thin sheet metal such as duct metal it curls and can be difficult to flaten properly. As you cut one side of the sheet metal will ride up and over the lower jaw. For thin sheets of metal you can use tin snips to cut through it.

To cut straight lines use an electric saw. If you ve got a lot of straight cutting to do buy tin snips like the one shown in photo 4. And the long blades make it easy to cut straight and leave a smooth edge. Cut steel between 16 gauge and 8 gauge with an electric jigsaw with a metal cutting blade or with a hacksaw.