Cutting Mild Steel Sheet

You can cut mild steel up to about 3 8 in.

Cutting mild steel sheet.

Hot metal chips will fly everywhere. Put on your safety gear keep bystanders away and cover anything you don t want coated with metal chips. Use compound snips to make small cuts in thin gauge steel. Aviation snips and tin snips are a common method of cutting thin sheet metal for hobbyists.

Compound snips are sometimes referred to as aviation snips or tin snips. The best method for a given situation depends largely on the thickness and configuration of the steel being cut. These scissor like tools allow you to cut through thin steel 24 gauge or thinner in the same way you would cut through paper with ordinary scissors. The water jet method can be used to cut straight through mild steel sheet mild steel plate or mild steel tube.

These tools are good for cutting soft sheet metals such as tin aluminum and brass. For a reference on gauge thickness see our gauge chart. Thick using a ferrous metal cutting blade. Various methods exist for cutting mild steel.

You ll find ferrous metal cutting blades at home centers hardware stores and online. Waterjet plasma laser cutting and power tools are several ways of cutting mild steel. You probably wont find snips which are capable of cutting above 18 gauge mild steel. In principle a waterjet works much like the natural water erosion that occurs over time.