Cut Sheet Metal Without Curling

How to cut sheet metal manually.

Cut sheet metal without curling.

The method you choose to cut sheet metal depends on the thickness of the metal and the type of cut you plan to make. It involves a bit of more work but the good thing is that most of the tools required are very basic. The lower the number the thicker the metal is. Curling sheet metal is the process of adding a hollow circular roll to the edge of the sheet.

The curled edge provides strength to the edge and makes it safe for handling. To cut straight lines use an electric saw. A handheld cutting tool fitted with a metal cut off wheel will easily cut through sheet. The illustrations are for a small bracket but i have cut 3 foot.

These photo steps show that it can be done using a utility knife. Jigsaws and metal cutting band saws are more work but can make most cuts in light to medium sheet metal. Here s how to cut thin metal at home without wasting half of it. Among others the most basic manual tool that you can use is a tin snip.

Most sheet metal cutting tools are limited to 16 gauge and thinner 14 gauge is still sheet metal but in common forms 11 gauge while technically sheet metal is 1 8 thick and not really sheet metal for the purposes of this article so we will focus on 16 gauge and thinner. 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. The tools for cutting metal vary depending on the type of metal but generally speaking you can use relatively simple and inexpensive tools to do it including a paper guillotine electric metal shears a nibbler a rotary tool or hand shears. How to cut thin sheet metal and keep it flat.