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Here are 5 great tools to help you in your sheet metal work:

1. The propane torch is essential for annealing the metal before working it. Annealing softens the metal, making it easier to work and less prone to breakage when formed. especially useful if you do repoussé or chasing.
2. Sheet metal shears are the mess-free way of cutting sheet metal. Get a nice chunky table or floor-standing model, instead of crushing every bone in your hand by insisting on using hand shears!
3. A drill press is the only sensible way to drill sheet metal. Using a hand-held electric drill is asking for trouble, as the drill may get stuck, sending the sheet metal whirling across the room, or straining your wrist severely. Secure the sheet metal to be drilled to the drill press table using heavy clamps and start working. Drill using HSS-drills, slow revs and cooling lubricant – that way your drill bits will live longer.
4. A sheet metal bending brake is just the thing when you need to make straight, even bends in sheet metal. Using this type of machine involves clamping the workpiece between two steel bars called the bed and the clamping leaf – and then bending the piece by forcing it into the desired angle with a heavy hinged steel bar known as the bending leaf. Sometimes the bending leaf has counterweights attached to help lift its weight when bending thick sheets. This is metalworking after all – not a work out. Sheet metal brakes can be had from small tabletop models to large floorstanders, and can be used to make anything from small brackets to rain gutters.
5. A pop riveting gun – yes that’s right! Not very sophisticated or anything, but it sure is an easy way of joining two pieces of sheet metal. Just drill holes slightly larger than the rivets, plop in the rivets and there you go. Pop rivets are usually made of aluminum, and not thicker than a few milimeters, so they won’t have immense strength like old-fashioned iron rivets with a cross-section of half an inch, but they will do fine for less critical assembly.

Photo by Mouser NerdBotThat was it for our sheet metal equipment top 5. You don’t have to own all of these to do proper sheet metal work – but it helps!