Easy way for novice to make a neat cut in thin stainless steel?

[rapidnailer07]

Long story short, I have a new AEG extractor fan that has been installed. This is what I have:

cooker hood.png (235.63 KiB) Viewed 3408 times

The thin stainless steel covers (I'd guess about 1mm thick) for the chimney hood come in two parts (one slides in the other). Due to the small height gap between hood and my ceiling, I need to cut both parts to make it fit in the gap. Both parts are needed because the inner cover has the mounting holes for the mounting bracket and the outer part has the AEG logo which I want to have visible.

Cutting the inner part isn't a problem as the cut will be hidden from view as it will be on the inside. However, the cut on the outer one will be somewhat visible so I need to make the neatest possible cut I can. I don't have an angle grinder nor a multi tool (both of which I thought would do this job).

As this is just a one off job, are there any hand tools that will allow me to make a neat cut? What kind of tool would I need to get? Any easy techniques I could use to help me get a nice neat cut?

[Chippo1]

It’s tricky with hacksaw or tinsnips, I would use an 4 ½” angle grinder with a thin 1mm metal cutting blade.

Mask the area mark out and cut carefully , trouble is it’s dam easy to burn and blue the cut edge. If you can clamp a peice of wood on the surface of the SS you can run blade along that and get a surprisingly straight edge.

Make sure work peice is supported , don’t forget gloves , goggles ect , 1mm2 blades can occasionally burst , from my experience

If you use a hacksaw again use a 32tpi blade and mask the area of the cut and cut at an angle where possible so there are using more than one tooth in contact with the SS to avoid the SS dropping between teeth and jaming. The old adage of don’t push down let the saw do the work is one to remember when cutting thin sheet. That SS is so easy to bend and ripple along the cut edge .

Use appropriate grade of Emery cloth and oil to deal with any scratch’s although that’s a last resort. Much if this SS will have a coating !

[Rorschach]

Anything except a grinder (maybe a dremel would do iit) with a thin disk is going to bend the metal, snips will distort it and be quite tough on 1mm thick, hacksaw will also be very difficult. Overheating and discolouration will also be something to be wary of.

[rapidnailer07]

It’s tricky with hacksaw or tinsnips, I would use an 4 ½” <span class="skimwords-potential">angle grinder</span><span style="position: absolute;"></span><span style="position: absolute;"></span> with a thin 1mm metal cutting blade.

Mask the area mark out and cut carefully , trouble is it’s dam easy to burn and blue the cut edge. If you can clamp a peice of wood on the surface of the SS you can run blade along that and get a surprisingly straight edge.

Make sure work peice is supported , don’t forget gloves , goggles ect , 1mm2 blades can occasionally burst , from my experience

If you use a hacksaw again use a 32tpi blade and mask the area of the cut and cut at an angle where possible so there are using more than one tooth in contact with the SS to avoid the SS dropping between teeth and jaming. The old adage of don’t push down let the saw do the work is one to remember when cutting thin sheet. That SS is so easy to bend and ripple along the cut edge .

Use appropriate grade of Emery cloth and oil to deal with any scratch’s although that’s a last resort. Much if this SS will have a coating !

Mainly to keep costs down as well as having more control, I think I'll go with the hacksaw route. I'll get highest TPI blade I can get. If the cut edge is rougher than I want, can I use a very fine file or sand paper? Even if it's to get a slightly bevelled edge?

I re-measured the thickness of the steel and I think it's probably 0.5mm. It's very thin.

[Hitch]

Asmall angle grinder and 1mm disc is by far the easiest way to do it.

I've cut dozens of these for people over the years. Often people would rock up at work to get them cut.
Put a few quid in the coffee machine type of job.

[rapidnailer07]

Bit of a delay actually getting around to doing this but because the cover is a U shape, it was actually very tricky to clamp down on a workmate type table. Also, the 32tpi blade hacksaw wasn't going to do the job. I've reached out to AEG in case they have something smaller that I can exchange mine for (should have reached out to them earlier to be honest, but oh well). If that fails then I think I'll invest in a dremel and a very thin cutting disc. As someone mentioned before, I'll clamp the cutting line down on a bit of wood so I can cut through the metal and slightly into the wood for support.

I really want to avoid any discolouration. So how can I prevent this with a dremel? Is it a case of spraying something on the surface to cool it down (e.g. spraying water). Or is it just a case of cutting it little by little? If I need to then I'm fully prepared to cut a few mm at a time before letting it cool, I'm in no immediate rush if it allows a clean cosmetic finish.