“How to - Drill a Screw Hole in
Thin Sheet Metal”
By Ron Stultz
Summary: Only drill as small a hole in sheet metal as possible to allow screw to just catch.
What’s to drilling a sheet
metal screw hole into thin metal? Don’t you just drill? No!
- If you can punch
a hole, that is better than a drilled hole as the punch will leave a nice metal
lip in the inside of the hole for the sheet metal screen to thread to. Punch?
Use a tool called a punch and a hammer. Of course not everything can be punched
all the way through
-
Use a punch to
mark the spot where you want your hole. If you have ever tried to drill a hole
in a flat piece of metal with a regular electric drill, you know how the drill
bit wants to walk all over the place. To fix this problem, punch a slight
indent or depression for your drill bit to fit into. If you can not punch,
drill a starter hole with a very small drill bit. The starter hole will do the
same thing as a punch depression for a larger drill bit.
- Use as small a
drill bit hole as you can that will still allow you to thread sheet metal
screws the hole. When you drill, you remove metal and to hold a sheet metal
screw tight, you need all the metal you can get.
Although it is tempting to
use an electric screwdriver to either start or completely screw tight a sheet
metal screw, be careful. If when the screw begins to draw tight, you do not
stop just at the right moment, the threads of the screw will strip out the
metal lip on the back of the metal hole. If possible, when the sheet metal
screw is almost flush with the sheet metal, hand screw it tight and do not over
tighten.