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Hand tools for metal work

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The unpowered metalworking bench set, all 38 grouped in sequence: mark out, cut and file, thread, then form. Metal does not forgive guessing the way wood does, which is why marking and measuring is the largest group here.

22 are marked essential: the tools a bench cannot really function without.

Part of the full hand tools list, 73 tools in 11 groups.

Marking out and measuring 10

The largest group on this page, and deliberately so. A metal cut cannot be adjusted afterwards, so accuracy is bought before anything is removed.

  • An engineers scriber with a knurled metal body and a very sharp hardened steel pointEssential

    Scriber

    A hardened point that scratches a permanent line into metal. Thin, visible through cutting fluid, and impossible to rub away, which is everything a pencil line on steel is not.

  • Engineer's squareEssential

    Engineer's square

    A precision-ground steel blade fixed at exactly 90 degrees to a thick stock. Used to scribe square lines and to check a filed edge, and accurate enough that it becomes the reference the bench trusts.

  • Steel rule: A stainless steel engineers rule with etched millimetre graduations along both edgesEssential

    Steel rule

    A rigid rule with etched graduations that stay legible after years of handling. The etched marks matter: printed scales wear off, and a rule you cannot read is worse than none because you will still use it.

  • A stainless steel vernier caliper with a dial, outside jaws, inside jaws and depth rodEssential

    Vernier caliper

    Reads outside, inside and depth to a hundredth of a millimetre. On a hand bench it is the tool that tells you whether you have filed to the line or gone past it, which is a question worth answering before the next stroke.

  • A steel centre punch with a knurled body and a sharp conical hardened tipEssential

    Centre punch

    Struck to dimple metal so a drill bit has something to sit in. Without it a bit wanders across the surface, and on a curved or polished face it wanders a long way before it bites.

  • A steel dot punch with a slim knurled body and a fine sharp conical point

    Dot punch

    A finer point than a centre punch, used to mark along a scribed line so it survives handling and cutting. The dots stay visible after the blue has rubbed off, which is the point of putting them there.

  • Odd leg calipers: A pair of odd leg jenny calipers with one straight pointed leg and one bent hooked leg

    Odd leg calipers

    One straight leg and one hooked, scribing a line parallel to an edge at a set distance. Also called jenny calipers, and quicker than any rule for marking a consistent margin around a plate.

  • A surface gauge with a heavy cast steel base, upright post and adjustable scriber arm

    Surface gauge

    A heavy base carrying an adjustable scriber, so a line can be marked at a fixed height all round a workpiece. It transfers a dimension from a rule to the metal without ever remeasuring it.

  • Layout blue: A small bottle of blue layout marking dye with a brush applicator capEssential

    Layout blue

    Quick-drying dye brushed onto metal before marking. A scriber cuts through it to leave a bright line against dark blue, which is dramatically easier to follow than a scratch on grey steel.

  • Letter and number punches: A set of steel letter and number stamping punches arranged in a row in a case

    Letter and number punches

    Hardened stamps that strike characters permanently into steel. Used to mark parts, sizes and reference numbers where paint or a label would not survive the environment the part lives in.

Cutting and filing 11

Removing metal. Cut outside the line, then file down to it, because a file corrects and a saw does not.

  • Hacksaw: Tensioning screw and pistol grip handleEssential

    Hacksaw

    A tensioned frame holding a fine replaceable blade, and the general cutting tool of a metal bench. What decides the result is tension and blade choice: slack blades wander, and too coarse a pitch strips teeth on thin work.

  • Junior hacksawEssential

    Junior hacksaw

    A small sprung frame taking a 150mm blade, for thin tube, rod and confined cuts. It reaches into places the full frame cannot, and it is the saw that actually gets used for small jobs.

  • Flat file: A flat engineers file with a wooden handle, showing the parallel toothed facesEssential

    Flat file

    Parallel faces with teeth on both, plus safe edges on some, for straight edges and outside curves. In second cut and 250mm long it is the file to own if you own only one.

  • Half round file: A half round engineers file with one flat face and one curved face and a wooden handleEssential

    Half round file

    Flat on one face and curved on the other, so one tool works an inside curve and a flat. It is the second file to buy, because a flat file physically cannot reach into a concave shape.

  • A set of needle files in assorted shapes with knurled handles fanned out in a row

    Needle files

    Small files in assorted sections with integral handles, for detail work and cleaning up a filed slot. Where a full size file is too coarse or too big to enter, these finish the job.

  • A file card cleaning brush with short stiff wire bristles and a wooden backEssential

    File card

    A short wire brush that clears the swarf pinned between file teeth. A pinned file stops cutting and starts scratching the work, and this fixes it in seconds, which is why a bench should never be without one.

  • A steel cold chisel with a wide flat cutting edge and a hexagonal struck bodyEssential

    Cold chisel

    A hardened flat-edged chisel struck to cut or split cold steel. It shears a rivet, splits a seized nut and cuts sheet where no saw will reach, and its tempered end must be dressed when it mushrooms.

  • A pair of straight tin snips with long steel cutting blades and red handlesEssential

    Tin snips

    Long straight blades that shear sheet up to about 1mm in a clean line. Used properly the blades never fully close, because closing them puts a kink in the cut edge that has to be worked out.

  • Aviation snips: A pair of aviation tin snips with compound lever handles, short serrated jaws and yellow grips

    Aviation snips

    Compound-lever snips with short serrated jaws in left, right and straight cut versions. The gearing cuts thicker sheet than plain snips, and the curved patterns turn tight radii without binding.

  • Hand nibbler: A hand sheet metal nibbler with a punch head and two long steel handles

    Hand nibbler

    Punches a small slot out of sheet with each squeeze, tracking a curve or an internal cutout without distorting the panel. Slower than snips and the only hand tool that leaves thin sheet genuinely flat.

  • A deburring tool with a plastic handle and a small swivelling hooked steel bladeEssential

    Deburring tool

    A swivelling hooked blade in a handle that shaves the burr off a cut edge or a drilled hole. That burr is sharp enough to cut you and stops parts sitting flat, and this removes it in one pass.

Threading and fixing 8

Cutting threads by hand is still routine, and it is also where the tool is most easily broken. Fluid, and a rhythm of forward and back.

  • A set of three hand taps, taper second and plug, with fluted cutting bodies and square drive endsEssential

    Hand taps

    Fluted hardened cutters that thread a drilled hole, sold in taper, second and plug forms to be used in that order. Brittle by design, so they snap if forced, and the chip must be broken every half turn.

  • A double ended tap wrench with two knurled adjustable arms and a central square jawEssential

    Tap wrench

    A double-armed holder that grips the square on a tap and lets both hands turn it evenly. Even pressure is what keeps the tap square and stops it snapping, which a single-sided grip cannot manage.

  • Split dies: A round split threading die, a steel disc with internal cutting threads and a slot

    Split dies

    Round cutters that thread the outside of a rod, adjustable slightly by a screw in the holder to fine tune the fit. Used to make a stud to length, or to clean up a thread that has been knocked over.

  • A die stock holder with two long handles and a circular recess holding a round die

    Die stock

    The handled holder that carries a round die and lets you start it square on the bar. It also holds the adjusting screws that set the die slightly open or closed to change the thread fit.

  • A thread pitch gauge, a fan of thin steel leaves with toothed edges and pitch markingsEssential

    Thread pitch gauge

    A fan of toothed leaves matched against an existing thread to identify its pitch. It answers the question that comes before every repair, which is what thread you are actually dealing with.

  • Cutting fluid: A tin of thick metal cutting paste with the lid removed beside itEssential

    Cutting fluid

    Oil or paste that cools the cut and flushes the chip out of the flutes. On tapping and drilling it is not optional: dry cutting work-hardens the surface and blunts or snaps the tool.

  • Hand riveter: A hand pop rivet gun with two long handles, a nosepiece and a rivet fittedEssential

    Hand riveter

    Squeezes a blind rivet to join sheets where there is no access to the back. The mandrel snaps at a set load, which is what tells you the rivet is fully set rather than leaving you to judge it.

  • A thread restoring file, a steel bar with different thread pitch profiles along each edge

    Thread restoring file

    A bar carrying eight thread pitch profiles along its edges, drawn along a damaged thread to reform it in place. It works on a stud still fitted to the assembly, which a die cannot reach.

Shaping and forming 9

Moving metal rather than removing it. Light repeated blows against a form, and a polished face so you do not print marks into the work.

  • A ball pein hammer with a steel head, one flat face and one rounded pein, and a wooden handleEssential

    Ball pein hammer

    A hardened flat face for striking punches and chisels, and a rounded pein for spreading rivets and peening. The hardened head is the reason a claw hammer must not be substituted: its softer face can chip.

  • A cross pein hammer with a steel head, one flat face and one wedge shaped pein across the handle

    Cross pein hammer

    A wedge-shaped pein set across the handle, used to draw metal out in one direction. On sheet it stretches a line rather than a spot, which is how you raise a curve deliberately instead of by accident.

  • A planishing hammer with a polished slightly domed steel face and a slim wooden handle

    Planishing hammer

    A light hammer with a highly polished slightly domed face, tapped over sheet against a stake to smooth out the marks left by forming. The polish matters: any flaw on the face transfers to the panel.

  • A rawhide mallet with a coiled hide cylindrical head and a wooden handle

    Rawhide mallet

    A dense hide head that moves metal without marking it, for forming a finished surface or seating a part. It has enough mass to do real work while staying softer than the workpiece.

  • A steel sheet metal forming stake with a curved polished domed head and a square shank

    Forming stake

    A shaped steel anvil held in the vice, providing the curve you hammer the sheet over. The stake is the tool that decides the shape; the hammer only supplies the force.

  • Engineer's vice: A heavy cast iron engineers bench vice with serrated steel jaws and a long screw handleEssential

    Engineer's vice

    A heavy cast vice with hardened serrated jaws, and the tool everything else on this page depends on. Metal has to be held rigidly to be cut, filed or tapped, and hand pressure is nowhere close to enough.

  • Soft vice jaws: A pair of aluminium soft vice jaw covers designed to clip over vice jawsEssential

    Soft vice jaws

    Aluminium or fibre covers that clip over hardened vice jaws to hold finished work without denting it. Without them the serrations print into anything soft, which on a finished part is unrecoverable.

  • A steel bending fork with two upright round prongs on a square shank

    Bending fork

    A two-pronged steel fork held in the vice, used to lever a controlled bend into flat bar or rod. It sets the radius by where the prongs sit, so bends repeat instead of being individually judged.

  • A small steel bench anvil block with a flat polished top face and a tapered horn

    Bench anvil block

    A small hardened block with a flat face and often a horn, giving hammer blows something solid to work against. Mass is what matters: a light block absorbs the blow instead of returning it to the work.

Working metal by hand

Mark it accurately, cut outside the line, then file to the line. Almost every hand metalworking job is that sequence.

Marking out comes first

A pencil line on steel is useless: it is wide, it rubs off, and you cannot see it under cutting fluid. Metalwork is marked with a scriber, which scratches a line into the surface, usually over a coat of layout blue so the bright scratch stands out.

Everything downstream depends on that line being right, because you cannot move it later. This is why a metalworking bench carries more measuring and marking tools than cutting ones.

Scribe, do not draw
A scratched line is thin, permanent and visible through oil. A pencil line is none of those things.
Layout blue
A quick-drying dye that makes a scribed line show as bright metal against dark. Cheap, and it transforms visibility.
Punch before you drill
A centre punch dimple is the only thing that stops a drill skating across a smooth surface.

Files are the finishing tool, not the shaping tool

A file cuts on the push stroke only. Dragging it back on the work rounds the teeth over and shortens its life for nothing. Lift it, or at minimum unload it, on the return.

Cut grades run from bastard through second cut to smooth. Work coarse to fine, the same as with abrasive, and never expect a smooth file to remove real material. It is there to take out the marks the coarse one left.

Push only
Cutting happens forward. The return stroke should be lifted, which roughly doubles how long a file lasts.
Chalk the teeth
Chalk in the gullets stops soft metals like aluminium pinning, which is what makes a file suddenly start scratching.
Always fit a handle
A bare tang is a spike. This is the most common workshop injury with a tool that is otherwise entirely safe.

Blade choice and speed

A hacksaw blade needs at least three teeth in the material at once. Fewer, and a tooth catches on the edge and strips. That single rule dictates the blade for the job: 18 TPI for solid bar, 24 for thicker tube, 32 for thin sheet and conduit.

Slow strokes with the full length of the blade cut faster than fast short ones, because heat is what kills a blade and speed is what makes heat. Around one stroke per second is right.

Three teeth minimum
In the material at all times. On thin wall tube that means 32 TPI, no matter how slow it feels.
Teeth forward
A hacksaw cuts on the push. Fitted backwards it will rub for a long time before you work out why.
Slow and long
One stroke a second using the whole blade. Fast strokes generate heat and heat blunts teeth.

Cutting a thread by hand

Threading is the operation where hand tools are still routinely the right answer, and where breaking the tool is easiest. A tap is hard and brittle. It snaps if you force it, and a snapped tap in a blind hole is a serious problem.

The rhythm is a half turn forward, a quarter turn back to break the chip, and cutting fluid throughout. Taper, second and plug taps exist to be used in that order, each cutting a little deeper.

Drill the right hole
The tapping size is not the thread size. M6 needs a 5mm hole; get this wrong and the tap will jam or the thread will be hollow.
Half forward, quarter back
Reversing snaps the chip. Continuous forward pressure packs it solid and that is what breaks taps.
Start square
A tap that enters crooked cuts a crooked thread and takes the bolt with it. Check against a square on the first turn.

Forming sheet without a machine

Sheet metal is shaped by stretching and shrinking rather than by cutting, and both are done with a hammer against a form. Hammer over a stake and the metal thins and stretches; hammer into a hollow and it gathers and shrinks.

The key discipline is many light blows rather than few heavy ones. A heavy blow leaves a mark that has to be planished out afterwards, which is more work than never making it.

Light and often
Many soft blows move metal more predictably than a few hard ones, and leave far less to clean up.
Polished faces
A hammer or stake with a mark on its face prints that mark into every panel it touches.
Anneal soft metals
Copper and brass work-harden as you form them, and will split unless heated to soften them again partway through.

Frequently asked questions

What hand tools do I need to start metalwork?
A bench vice, a hacksaw with spare blades, a set of files with handles, a steel rule and engineer's square, a scriber and centre punch, a ball pein hammer, cold chisels, and a tap and die set. That covers marking, cutting, filing and threading, which is most hand metalwork.
What is the difference between a ball pein and a claw hammer?
A ball pein has a flat face and a rounded pein, and its head is hardened to strike other steel tools like punches and chisels. A claw hammer is for nails and its face is softer, so striking a chisel with one can chip the face and send a fragment flying.
Which file should I buy first?
A 250mm second cut flat file with a handle. Second cut removes material at a useful rate while still leaving a surface you can work with, and flat covers straight edges and outside curves. Add a half round next, because a flat file cannot reach into a concave curve.
Why does my hacksaw blade keep breaking?
Usually too much downward pressure, or twisting the frame so the blade binds in the kerf. Sometimes the blade is too coarse, so a tooth catches on the edge of thin material and snatches. Let the weight of the saw do the cutting and keep the frame square to the cut.
What size hole do I drill before tapping a thread?
Roughly the thread diameter minus the pitch. M6 with a 1mm pitch takes a 5mm hole, M8 with 1.25mm takes 6.8mm. Undersize and the tap jams or snaps; oversize and the thread has too little material to hold. Every tap set should come with a chart.
Can I cut steel with an ordinary hacksaw?
Yes, that is what it is for. Mild steel bar cuts readily with an 18 TPI bimetal blade and a slow steady stroke. Hardened steel is a different matter and will simply blunt the blade, which is when you reach for an abrasive disc instead.
What is layout blue for?
It is a quick-drying dye brushed or sprayed onto the metal before marking out. A scriber cuts through it to leave a bright line against a dark background, which is far easier to see and to follow than a scratch on bare steel.
Do I need a vice for metalwork?
More than any other single tool. Metal has to be held rigidly to be cut, filed, tapped or bent, and hand pressure is nowhere near enough. An engineer's vice with a decent jaw width is the first purchase for a metalworking bench, not an accessory to it.