Cutting Straight Line Sheet Metal

A punch separates a length of stock along a straight line.

Cutting straight line sheet metal.

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. To cut straight lines use an electric saw. Even so your cut will probably be a little ragged.

Industrial sheet metal cutting operations such as this will usually incline the punch so as to reduce the maximum force needed by distributing the required force over the. One of the simplest types of press working operations is a sheet metal cutting process called a straight cutoff. As you cut one side of the sheet metal will ride up and over the. Step 5 optional if your project requires cutting a hole in the center of sheet metal draw it on the metal as you would any other cut line.

This may be a no brainer to most of you but i had to do a lot of repetitive cutting of sheet steel and was looking for the fastest way to do it. It cuts metal almost as easily as a scissors cuts paper. For thin sheets of metal you can use tin snips to cut through it. An well known trick when cutting with your plasma cutter is to clamp a metal straight edge to the metal so the arc is directly over your cut line.

This way you can simply press the edge of the torch cup against the straight edge and slowly make a straight cut. Then grip the saw with both hands and push the blade through the metal to cut it.