Thread: irrregular holes in sheet metal

Dremel, mounted in the router accessory, with a small carbide cutter (Rotozip type), works for me. The region beyond the hole should be large enough to support the router base to keep it square to the surface. This can be accomplished by cutting the holes before cutting the outside boundary. An ordinary drill can make the starting hole. The final hole outline must not have any corners sharper than the cutter. Practise on scrap first, to learn the tool's response.

Set the entire sheet on a stout support, BTW.

The carbide cutter may raise burrs on both surfaces of the metal, to be filed down if needed.

Cheers,
Joe

A little more information and I would be able to give better advice. Is it steel sheet,aluminum,copper sheet? What will the shapes roughly look like? Based on the information given I would say a small plasma cutter would work well but not worth considering for one project but perhaps worth while if you do a lot of art metal stuff. A nibbler would also work, there are cheap air powered ones, expensive electric ones, or there are hand powered ones. What Joe suggests would also work well but you would need to be carefull. If the material was aluminum a woodworking router and template would work well( again be carefull) best of luck.
Darrell

A jewelers fret saw with a very fine blade could be good.

see

http://store.smithnsmith.com.au/prod...oducts_id=1486

and

http://store.smithnsmith.com.au/prod...oducts_id=1507

I would use a nibbler. You can buy nibbler attachments for a drill, like this one: http://www.newstyledirect.com.au

It's a bit pricey but I bought one and it works very well, surprisingly considering the site it's for sale on. You drill a small hole to start with.

I would go with silentC on this one. My Falcon nibbler attachment was $100 bucks aout 18 months ago. Given it heaps so far without complaint.

Obviously if u are using it enough it would be hard to beat a dedicated unit.

Would laser cutting costs be too expensive? A quick trawl around the net tell me it might be but maybe not if the right place is found. Seems to be the go to get a few people together to combine projects from the one or multiple sheets. It may also be advantageous to get the plan and drawings done in a vector eps format the likes of what Adobe Illustrator can produce. I can help you with that if you want.

I reckon a Winchester 30-30 at about 10 paces should put a pretty good hole in your sheet, just kidding of course, I find the little nibblers to be excellent for this chore and not as noisy.

Cheers....Jeff

Thanks for all the replies, sorry it's taken me so long to respond...just spent a couple of days in the watch house after following Oddjobs advice.

A little more information and I would be able to give better advice. Is it steel sheet,aluminum,copper sheet?

I pre-dominantly use galvanized sheet metal or zinc alum, occasionally I use copper or soft sheet aluminum, though I don't have as much trouble with these metals.

While a plasma cutter would wonderful it'd be bit to expensive for my budget. I have thought about a nibbler before, but the ones I've used in the past have been rather large and cumbersome, certainly not suited to the sort of work I'm doing, I'll have to look at whats available now, it's a long time since I used one.

I might get a Dremel anyway, I keep thinking of other things I can use it for anyway.

Thanks all

With the one I posted the link to, you can mount it to the bench and move the sheet over the cutter. It can cut very tight shapes. Watch the demo. I was bored one night and was flicking through the cable channels and came across the shopping channel. I usually run screaming from those but I watched the demo for a bit and thought it looked pretty good. The cut edge is very smooth too.

Ouch, expensive! Harbor freight has some cheapies here

Harbour freight = Bottom of the Harbour.

Some of their hand tools are the same as McJing imports, some is the stuff that Sims Metal rejects. The power tools are nearly all 110volt.

AND they charge horrendous freight - some years ago I tried to get a couple of $10 venturi pumps, was initially quoted ~$170 US for shipping UPS, when I told them to stick it & not use UPS they dropped the price about $20, but still wanted to use the pirates.

Originally Posted by bsrlee

Harbour freight = Bottom of the Harbour.

Some of their hand tools are the same as McJing imports, some is the stuff that Sims Metal rejects. The power tools are nearly all 110volt.

AND they charge horrendous freight - some years ago I tried to get a couple of $10 venturi pumps, was initially quoted ~$170 US for shipping UPS, when I told them to stick it & not use UPS they dropped the price about $20, but still wanted to use the pirates.

It's a cheap option and the air tools are the same voltage as we use

I have an air file of theirs that cost about $30 and has done about 10 hours work so far.

In material that light, a set of Jewellers Curved Jaw Shears or Snips like these make short of those sort of holes.

Attachment 99076

The pair shown here is 175mm long all up and I have cut 20mm diameter holes in .8 gal no worries

Thank you julianx, it is an honour that you would choose to follow my advice, my many apologies for not extending that advice to being sure of the legality of your actions! However as I am in no doubt you are an artist you can visualise the 3 dimensional view of a hole made by a 30-30 maybe under the right legal conditions is a winner! However, really these days you should be able to find a very nice small nibbler that can munch away quietly at any kind of irregular hole with air or even single phase, let your fingers do the walking!

Cheers...Jeff