Best Way To Cut Sheet Metal Straight

There are two ways to cut round ducts.

Best way to cut sheet metal straight.

The normal blade or straight pattern blade is best for making long straight cuts. Simply line up your chisel along the line you are going to cut and strike the back of it with a hammer. Set your saw to straight rather than oscillating if there s a choice. Standard straight pattern tin snips.

Cutting straight lines with an electric saw. If your project requires curved cuts make an easy economical and adjustable. If you ve hit it hard enough the chisel will cut the sheet metal if it s thin enough. A handheld cutting tool fitted with a metal cut off wheel will easily cut through sheet.

A stationary or hand shear is a very good approach to delicate detail work. First if you want to cut a duct near the middle and use both ends mark and cut the duct before snapping it together. Here are a few tips for cutting metal with a recip saw. The duckbill bladed tin snip is better for cutting in tighter curves but the tapered design of the blade makes it less robust for cutting thicker gauged sheets.

There is no perfect or best way to cut sheetmetal materials. Wax your saw blade before cutting sheet metal. Using a straight edge clamped to the edge of the bench is also a good tip to cut thin metal precisely. Extend blade life by keeping the saw s speed slow.

Straight cutting compound snips work best for cutting thick or doubled up sheet metal. Place the metal on a hard surface to score it and on long pieces do the bending with the score place along a sharp edge of a bench and if necessary clamp the fixed piece with a long piece of flat wood to prevent buckling the metal while bending it back and forth. Making detailed cuts with. 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.

Place the sheet metal on top of the workbench and lay out your pattern using a tape measure pencil and straightedge. If a straight line is required it is best to shear flat metal in a metal shear. Using a chisel and hammer is the most basic form of cutting sheet metal. They don t cut curves well.

Jigsaws and metal cutting band saws are more work but can make most cuts in light to medium sheet metal. Using tin snips for thin sheets. Different methods of cutting metal work best in different situations.