How to Cut Metal Roofing [Corrugated and Sheet Metal]

Cut Metal Roofing With Tin Snips

What is the cheapest way to cut metal roofing? The cheapest way to cut metal roofing is with a pair of tin-snips. You want a pair of straight cuts, and better a left or right-handed pair for cutting both straight, and around corners.

If your only going to get one pair and you are right handed get a right-cut snip or left-hand-cut if you are left handed as a left or right cut can also cut straight, and can do so better for detailed work.

Tin snips are good for cutting any edge of corrugated iron that is going to be seen, as they are easy to control when cutting. It is the most common way to cut galvanized, stainless steel, and plastic flashing’s. As well as thin gauged metal roofing, although there are faster tools for bigger jobs like electric shears and nibbler drill attachments.

You can generally get away with only 2 pairs, as most of the time you only need to cut around a corner from one side left or right. You can also turn the tin snips upside down to make your cut. It is however sometimes better value just to get a set of 3 so you have a replacement.

When using tin snips to cut thick metal, or if you are using low quality metal snips, they can fail with the two blades starting to separate causing the metal snips to not cut effectively. This is also a problem if your tin snip blade is too long.

Metal corrugated roofing can come in different gauge’s , most gauges can be cut with tin-snips easily, but slowly. And for this reason there are other tools for cutting metal roofing such as impact driver shears or an electric or air nibbler.

Pros:

• Clean controlled cut
• Cheap tool
• Reasonably easy to cut a big sheet up as long as both sides are biggish
• Best tool to tidy up seen metal roofing areas for example, you cut the seen visible roof edge quickly with a nibbler, while you cut first with the nibbler half an inch longer than needed. After the roofing has been installed you later trim the last bit of corrugated metal roofing in a tidy way with a good pair of tin-snips.
• You can cut big sheets of metal roofing in half as long as the off-cut is big enough to hold and twist out-of-the-way to let the snips keep cutting.

Cons:

• If you are cutting more that .75 Inch off, it is difficult to cut corrugated iron with tin snips. Unless the of cut is big enough, to hold onto and bend out-of-the-way.
• Very slow
• You can’t cut along the sheet, only effective cutting is cross cutting the corrugated iron.

Click Here to read my best tin snips for metal roofing review.

Cut Metal Roofing With Electric Shears

What are electric shears? Electric sharers, come in two varieties, a standard plug-in in power-tool, or better an attachment for your impact driver. Shears are a cheap tool that can quickly cut sheets of corrugated metal in straight lines with little effort.

Pros:

• Cheap compared to a nibbler
• Can cut straight lines fast than using tins nips by hand
• Perfect for quickly cutting metal roofing, that is hidden under a ridge or flashing
• Faster than a nibbler for straight cuts

Cons:

• Cannot cut around corners, or cut angles well.
• Joust like tin snips they cannot cut along the same direction as the corrugate, only cross cutting the metal sheet
• The tool has less working life than a nibbler
• Hard to use for anything but a straight cut
• The sheet is ideally layed down on the ground when cutting

Click Here if you want to read my electric metal cutting shears, recommendation.

Cutting Metal Roofing With A Nibbler

What is the best way to cut metal roofing? A nibbler is the best way to cut metal roofing, a nibbler, unlike electric shares, a nibbler can be moved more easily to cut around corners quickly and easily with out jamming.

An electric nibbler is what a professional roofer would use, it punches its way through the metal in a fast and tidy way to leave a clean-cut.  Nibblers cut metal roofing materials like butter.

Nibblers work great because they cut a decent amount of metal out with each punch so that the blade doesn’t jamb like shears and tin-snips can.

There are actually 4 types of nibblers. If you want read my full review Click Here to find the best nibbler tool for cutting metal roofing.

Pros:

• Smooth consistent cutting
• Excellent for cutting around corners, or corrugated metal sheets on an angle as the cutter has to go up and down over each corrugate, the nibbler is good at this. Where as shears or tin snips would slow and messy.
• The cut is clean and tidy and generally without sharp edges, that other tools can leave

Cons:

• For cutting straight unseen edges, electric shears could be faster.
• Most expensive tool option for cutting metal roofing

Nibbler Tip:

It is recommended to cut visible roofing edges half an Inch longer with a nibbler, and then tidying up with a second cut with a good pair of tin-snips, as the of-cut is small the tin-snips wont jamb.

Cut Metal Roofing With An Angle Grinder

Can I use an Angle grinder to cut corrugated iron? Using an electric angle grinder or cordless angle grinder isn’t the recommended way to cut metal roofing. Metal roofing is thin enough for a much safer and faster tools to do the job. Grinders leave sparks that can burn the paint finish, and also leave a dangerous sharp cut edge.

Pros:

• If you use a diamond wheel instead of a steel-cut-of disk, the blade wont wear out. But changing blades all the time inst a problem with shears or nibblers anyway.
• If you are cutting thick corrugate, like hole or cut, out of a steel shipping container, then an angle grinder is the best choice – use a steel cut-of blade.

Cons:

• Steel cut of blades can wear-out fast
• Leaves a dangerous sharp edge that should be taken of with a file
• Sparks can burn and damage the paint finish
• Not professional, and messy

Order Metal Roofing The Right Size

How To Order metal roofing? When you order corrugated iron make sure you let the supplier know what lengths you actually want. Order corrugated metal roofing at the length that you need. This will eliminate wastage and reduce the amount of cutting you would need to do.

Sometimes you are going to have to cut corrugated roofing yourself if you are recycling the roofing material. Or if you have a roof angle that a factory wont cut for you. Or if you are working around roof penetrations.

Corrugated Roofing Thickness And Gauge

What is the best metal roofing gauge? Corrugated roofing comes in different gauges, the thinnest gauge is easier to cut with tin snips, but if someone walks on your roof it can dent easily. Corrugated roofing that has a thicker gauge isn’t that much more expensive, and worth it in my opinion. But requires a nibbler to cut, the thicker gauge.

With a stronger thicker gauge roofing iorn you don’t have to worry so much about your getting dents if someone walks on the roof for maintenance. A nibbler will easily cut all gauges of roofing but like I said above tin snips really struggle on thicker gauges compared to a  nibbler.

Metal Roofing Types And Rust Protection 

1. Galvanized Steel Roof –Surface layer protection only, and corrodes on cut edges.
2. zincalume OR GalvalumeRoof – Both basically the same thing, standard and good lasting protection in general settings.
3. Aluminum Roof –Long lasting around the sea but the roof expands a lot with change of temperature, this can sometimes break fixings.
4. Zinc Roof – Very high life, around the sea, but scratches easily.
5. Copper Roof –Extreme long life around the sea. But any steel metal shaving left on the roof well rust through a hole. Copper roofs are bad for water run of and the marine environment.

Galvanized Steel Roofing

A galvanized steel roof, has a zinc coating layer of protection only, the cut edges therefore are not protected around the sea. These roofs will quickly rust from the cut join up. This is especially true around the sea. Known as the “sea spray” area.

Zincalume And Galvalume Roofing

Zincalume and galvalume roofing are much the same except licensed in different country’s. They are a mix of aluminum and zinc through-out rather than just a zinc coating. This gives cut edges some protection against rusting.

A Galvalume roof is available corrugated, with many design types.

Aluminum Roofing

Lasts a long time while being cheaper than getting a zinc or copper roof installed. Although as mentioned above, it can expand and shrink a lot with heat.

Zinc Roofing

A zinc roof costs more, but has very good life in areas close to the sea this means your roof can last a lot longer.

A zinc roof is generally installed with a series of trays, and a cap.

Copper Roofing

A copper roof is the most expensive material to build a roof out of. Copper is extremely long-lasting even around the sea. It also looks very nice.

Although a copper roof will turn green after it ages for a few years, it is also bad for the marine environment, when the water run-of ends up in the sea via storm water pipes.