Cutting Thin Sheet Metal Straight

Worked well to cut thin steel.

Cutting thin sheet metal straight. Using tin snips for thin sheets. Choose a blade with 20 to 24 tpi teeth per inch for thin metal 10 to 18 tpi for medium thickness metal and about 8. These photo steps show that it can be done using a utility knife. Right cutting left cutting and straight cutting snips.

The illustrations are for a small bracket but i have cut 3 foot long pieces using this method. How to cut sheet metal method 1 of 4. Making detailed cuts with. Make long strokes for long straight cuts.

Set your saw to straight rather than oscillating if there s a choice. Wax your saw blade before cutting sheet metal. Open the cutters as wide as you can at the start of each stroke and make long smooth strokes. If you ve hit it hard enough the chisel will cut the sheet metal if it s thin enough.

Cutting straight lines with an electric saw. Right and left cutting snips are used for making curved cuts while straight cutting snips make straight cuts. Using a chisel and hammer is the most basic form of cutting sheet metal. There are many different types of tin snips but for cutting sheet metal you only need to work with three basic types.

Lift the cutoff strip and roll it to the side to prevent it from binding on the tin snips handle. If you use metal shears to cut thin sheet metal such as duct metal it curls and can be difficult to flaten properly. Choose between red blue or yellow snips based on the cut direction. Nice tight blade contact.

Here are a few tips for cutting metal with a recip saw. Long straight cuts are easier to make with large tin snips.