Aviation Snips Basics - when you need to cut or trim sheet metal

The basics of aviation snips (sometimes called "tin snips").
This is the go-to tool for rough shaping of sheet metal, though they're useful on a bunch of other things, too!
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Affiliate product links:
All are Wiss brand or Midwest brand -- both Made in USA.
Long-cut straight snips (blue handle): amzn.to/32vP1p8
Regular jaw triple pack (Straight, Left, Right): amzn.to/36nLlqz
Offset jaw triple pack: amzn.to/2IjGU7U
Upright jaw (for even tighter curved cuts)
- Right: amzn.to/32uW9Cd
- Left: amzn.to/2UakKrs

[@RaysLaughsAndLyrics]

You are using your aviation snips wrong. Yellow.. for small edge cuts. Green and Red cut straight or curved. Red: the metal curls up on the left side of the cut. Green : the metal curls up on the right side of the cut. The curled side is your waste side. The good side will have a clean, flat edge with no distortion. Being spring loaded allows for squeezing 1/4" incremental cuts in repetition. The small increments allow for better control than longer incremental cuts.

[@slingshotshooter7536]

i have only the yellow ones i had a lot of trouble cutting a long piece of metal roof the yellow straight cut snips doesn't curl the metal ?

[@brendens5961]

​@@slingshotshooter7536I have found the yellow ones to be useless. I'd get a pair of right and left. It's a bit of work splitting a sheet(you pretty much cut it twice pushing up a small ribbon out of your way). For about the same price you could get electric sheers. Sheers only cut flat. A nibbler can do all kinds of things. The cheaper ones attach to a drill.

[@firefly6880]

​ @slingshotshooter7536 ​ @brendens5961 The offset versions (red/yellow) are *much* easier for cutting long pieces. Various examples available on KZbin.

[@DougTogold-vq1yf]

Wanted to watch a video so I could stop cutting stuff like you do!

[@6atlantis]

What’s the model number on the old craftsman(made in U.S.A) snips with the yellow handle?

[@beeftimer]

"Well, I kinda mangled that a little bit..." Ya think???

[@kryptocat4240]

Which brand ? Is Stanley fatmax snip worth buying ?

[@JustToolBasics]

Wiss and Midwest brands (linked above in the description) are the two big names in snips. Both are made in the USA, both are very high quality -- I own a mix of them (basically, if I'm in the market I'll get whichever is available/cheaper-at-the-moment). The Stanley FatMax snips have pretty high reviews, so they don't seem terrible, of course, but I personally don't feel compelled to switch brands, either. They are made in China, if that matters to you, as well.

[@bostonslasher746]

Are there any handtool cutters that I could cut 1mm aluminum with? Or will these do the job?

[@JustToolBasics]

Unless the aluminum you're cutting is very annealed, even if you managed to smash through it, it would have a _really_ rough edge since the kind of aluminum coming as a 1mm plate isn't (usually) very malleable and these tools kind of depend on that property. Aluminum generally does a lot better with a saw-type tool (or other types of tools that evacuate chips, like a nibbler or whatever) -- aluminum tends to "load up" on abrasive cutters and similar cutting tools that work fine with steel. Of course, it depends on the kinds of shapes you're trying to cut, but I'd suggest a jigsaw with a metal-cutting blade.

[@daver2964]

Agree with Ray barn, your using and explaining wrong!