Cutting hole in thin gauge metal-perhaps little ot

Hole Saw in a power drill. Should give a fairly neat round hole. You will have to be careful to keep it from grabbing and tearing.

Jig Saw. Should be fast, hole probably won't be too neat.

Manual Nibbling sheetmetal tool. Modest cost, useful for other stuff later. Will take a little time to do and will have a million sharp little bits of metal. Also an excellent source of blisters. (Grin)

If I were doing this, I would use the nibbling tool.

Good Luck, Bob

Appropriate size hole saw.

You may want to try a tool for cutting round vents into sheetmetal plenums used in HVAC work. I don't know the exact name for the tool, but it uses an electric drill to drill a center hole, then a pin on the bottom of the tool engages this center hole. next, a cutter set an appropriate distance from the center hole (radius of the hole you are trying to drill) gets rotated about,compass like, cutting a neat hole in your camper.

probably something you want to borrow rather than buy unless you plan on drilling lots of holes. Good luck, Andy

On Thu, 05 Jul 2007 08:42:56 -0700, with neither quill nor qualm, El Cazador quickly quoth:

In order of preference:

2) rotozip or small router with a round template 4-5" larger than the router base

Thanks, people. Think I'll try the hole saw since I have a dia. close to where I need to be when I'm done.

If the shell is aluminum, you could take two nails, drive them in a piece of wood 2 - 2 1/2" a part and then drill a small center hole (or whack nail with hammer), then if you press and rotate around a while, you will cut through the metal outer shell.

Wes

I forgot to add, think Trammel Points.

Wes

Try a sabre saw with a fine tooth blade. Scribe the circle with a compass, or equivalent, drill a hole big enough to insert the sabre saw blade through, inside the circle, and go for it. Should do the trick very nicely. Have cut many holes in the race car that way.

Jim Chandler

A pilothole and then left and right aviation snips. You ought to have them around, anyway.

Pete Stanaitis

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El Cazador wrote:

If it's aluminum, a router will work. Any of the methods mentioned so far will work better if the metal is sandwiched between two chunks of wood. How you do that is up to you!

Stan

If there is no paneling or wood backing directly behind the aluminum skin where you want to put the hole, put one there temporarily. Something to drill into.

Otherwise the teeth on the hole saw *will* snag (drilling it handheld, this is not a 'maybe'), the center drill snaps off or rips out, and you're "off to the races" with the hole-saw headed sideways at a fast clip, leaving nasty gashes in the aluminum skin as you go...

And it can also rip the skin at break-through, again making the hole in the aluminum skin a whole lot larger than you originally intended.

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According to El Cazador :

Aside from the other suggestions which I've seen here, there is the possibility to borrow an Electrician's conduit punch for a large conduit. I think that Greenlee makes them up to that size range, and it would be child's play to cut through the (presumed) aluminum with that. You would need a smaller hole first, to clear the drawbolt, and *that* would be a good place to use the hole saws.

Or -- if you *must* use a hole saw, figure some way to firmly clamp a piece of wood behind the place where you are cutting to keep a pilot hole to guide the hole saw, or it will probably rip nastily when it breaks through on one side before the other.

Try it on some similar scrap metal first to see how it behaves when it breaks through.

Good Luck, DoN.

"Aviation snips". They come in left, right, and straight cut. I've gotten by with a straight (yellow) set for a LOT of years. Don't buy cheap---this is one place where you do indeed get what you pay for.

If you go the hole saw route, do it with a variable speed drill and go SLOW.