Power Tools

Sheet Metal Cutting, Shearing, CNC Laser Cutting

Sheet Metal Cutting

Sheet metal is one of the fundamental forms of thin metal pieces used in most of the metal working applications. Sheet metals can be cut and bent into different shapes. They can either be flat or coiled. The sheet metal coils are usually formed by running a continuous sheet of metal through a roll slitter and are used in various applications like car bodies, airplane wings, medical tables, roofs for buildings etc. Different kinds of metals including steel, aluminum, brass, copper, nickel etc can be formed into sheet metal. Cutting sheet metal can be done by various methods like shearing cutting, CNC laser cutting, CNC water jet cutting, press brake forming, punching etc.

Shearing

Shearing is a general name for most of the sheet metal cutting processes that utilize shearing force to cut sheet metals. These are widely employed metal cutting processes that produce straight line cuts to separate a piece of sheet metal from a flat metal stock. Shearing is generally performed by shearing machines which consist of two blades. Metal to be cut is placed between these two upper and lower blades which are then forced past each other with the space between them determined by a required offset to cut metal sheet. Metal shearing can be performed on metal sheets, metal strips, bar, metal plate, metal coils and even angle stock which can be cut-to-length as required. By employing different methods like punching, piercing, lancing, slitting, nibbling and notching metal sheets in various designs and patterns can be formed.

CNC Laser Cutting

Modern sheet metal cutting operations are based on CNC lasers cutting processes. Laser cutting makes use of high density light energy to cut sheet metals. In CNC laser cutting process a beam of high-density light energy is focused through a tiny hole in a nozzle. When this beam strikes the surface of the work piece, the material of the work piece is vaporized. Laser cutting can produce almost any type of two dimensional metal shapes and can applied to different types of materials like steel, aluminum, copper, acrylic etc. However it is highly suitable for cutting stainless steel sheets. One notable advantage with CNC laser cutting is that this process yields minimal burrs and minimal heat distortion.

About the Author

Priyank Steels provides services for metal cutting, metal bending, metal forming including sheet metal cutting, metal shearing, cnc water jet cutting, cnc plasma cutting, cnc oxy fuel cutting, cnc laser cutting, press brake bending and also provides stainless steel parts like stainless steel sheets, stainless steel coils, stainless steel plate, stainless steel strips, stainless steel flanges etc.

I am putting up corrugated metal siding. I need to cut some of the lengths. What is the best way?

I used a jig-saw with metal blade. Not real successful.
I used a saws-all with metal blade. Much less successful.
I used tin snips. That was a desaster.
What is the best way to make cuts on the sheet meta dealing with all the irrigularities??????
Help is greatly appreciated.

I just did this a month ago-it sucks I agree…the best way is to get a masonry blade that fits on your skill saw. then put a board along side of the cut so your skill saw can ride along at one level (also use this board to set your saw on and set your blade depth first) You can cut vertically, diagonally,horizontally,etc. with this method… but use your eye protection and it’ll screech like heck and it’s kinda scary but it works.
If you cut a few times the blade will get smaller and smaller so keep checking your depth.
Also if you set the depth right there’ll be a slight bit that’s not cut…but just bend it back and forth and it’ll break off pretty clean…good luck.