How To Shape Sheet Metal With Hand Tools

This video shows how to create and form your own sheet metal parts with limited tooling.

How to shape sheet metal with hand tools.

In this video i show how to make a simple metal brake with a couple. If you want a sharp 90 bend tap along the crease with a mallet. Our mallets slappers and hammers along with our shot bags t dollies and forming heads will fully equip you to start shaping metal with the right tools. This chapter covers shaping fitting and smoothing sheetmetal with hand tools and power forming equipment.

These are the operations that turn flat stock into the finished shapes that you need and want. With a single tool create both sharp creases and soft curves along the edges of sheet metal. This tech tip is from the full book automotive bodywork rust repair. Here are some of the more common tools but they represent only a small number of options.

Many different tools cut sheet metal and each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Bending sheet metal by hand is a manageable task if the piece of sheet metal is small and thin enough to handle. In the past we ve presented metal shaping articles that showed the average inexperienced joe how to create just about anything from a flat sheet of steel provided he has access to the right tools. Our selection of hand tools for metal shaping provides fabricators with the best quality and most brands to choose from.

Therefore power tools are the only option in these cases. It works like a tiny scissor type snip. Most frequently expensive sheet metal bending tools called brakes are used to bend sheet metal but you can also complete this task without one. Industrial grade cutting jobs of sheet metals are hardly done with hand tools that consume more time and provide less output and precision.

Sheet metal cutting power tools. Among power tools the most commonly used ones are quality handheld nibblers.