Quality Issues for Flat Sheet Metal Cut With a Shear

Basics of Shears

• The most basic method for cutting sheet metal is with a pair of hand-held shears, otherwise known as a pair of tin snips. They resemble a pair of scissors that are designed to cut sheet metal. They also come in electric or pneumatic format, which makes cutting the metal that much easier, streamlining the process and taking the physical labor aspect out of the equation.

Manual Shears

• Tin snips, or manual shears, tend to have the greatest level of control in terms of cutting, resulting in the highest quality of cuts when a sharp pair of shears are used. However, the down side is that if you try to cut a piece of metal that is too thick for a pair of manual shears you will have jagged edges where you are trying to force the shears to cut through something that is too thick. You can also dent the metal if you aren’t careful.

Electric Shears

• While electric shears are easier to use than the hand-powered variety, and they tend not to have issues with jagged edges, the down side is that they cut quickly and efficiently, which can lead to the user paying less attention to the exactness of the cuts. Over-cutting is a very real issue when using electric cutters, so you should take your time to keep the blades along the lines you want to cut to. Just like hand-held shears, the blades need to be sharp and you need to use shears that are rated for the specific metal you are cutting or you will have jagged or dented edges.

Warping

• Similar to how a piece of paper will fold upwards and downwards along the sides of the blade, the same issue can plague shears for cutting through sheet metal. You need to be careful when cutting the metal to ensure that you don’t warp the piece as the sheers pass through, because the natural tendency of the sheet metal will be to bend away from the sheers. The higher quality sheers have mechanisms in place to help avoid this, but you should still take your time and work slowly to help keep warping from occurring.