Cutting Tools for Aluminum Aircraft Sheet Metal

This is one area where high-quality tools are very important. Cheap tin snips will tend to dull quickly and cause the aluminum to roll rather than to shear clean when cutting. Another important consideration is ease of cutting. Regular tin snips require your hand to be right between the two sharp edges of the aluminum being cut. Good offset aviation tin snips will allow the hand to be above the sharp aluminum and may avoid getting a hand cut. Another benefit of the offset tin snips is that they are easier to get a lot of leverage when cutting. The tin snips come in straight, left and right cut. Use them exactly as they are labeled. Yellow handle straight snips for cutting straight pieces, red handled left snips for cutting curves to the left, and green handled right snips for cutting curves to the right. In judging the quality of tin snips based upon retaining sharpness and ease of use I would rate them as follows: #1 Klein Tools Offset Tin Snips, #2 Klein Tools Straight Tin Snips and #3 WISS Brand Aviation Tin Snips.

For very large and flat sheet metal parts, such as a wing skin panels, you may want to locate someone with a foot shear or power shear which will provide a very quick and clean straight cut.