Cutting Thin Sheet Metal Straight

Right and left cutting snips are used for making curved cuts while straight cutting snips make straight cuts.

Cutting thin sheet metal straight.

Set your saw to straight rather than oscillating if there s a choice. Here are a few tips for cutting metal with a recip saw. How to cut sheet metal method 1 of 4. Worked well to cut thin steel.

Extend blade life by keeping the saw s speed slow. Long straight cuts are easier to make with large tin snips. Longer blade was nice for long straight cuts 148 see all buying options. Make long strokes for long straight cuts.

If you use metal shears to cut thin sheet metal such as duct metal it curls and can be difficult to flaten properly. Open the cutters as wide as you can at the start of each stroke and make long smooth strokes. Cutting straight lines with an electric saw. These photo steps show that it can be done using a utility knife.

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 long pieces using this method. Choose between red blue or yellow snips based on the cut direction. Right cutting left cutting and straight cutting snips.

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. Nice tight blade contact. Making detailed cuts with. Lift the cutoff strip and roll it to the side to prevent it from binding on the tin snips handle.

There are many different types of tin snips but for cutting sheet metal you only need to work with three basic types. Simply line up your chisel along the line you are going to cut and strike the back of it with a hammer.