How Does Sheet Metal Gauge Work

Commonly used steel sheet metal ranges from 30 gauge to about 7 gauge.

How does sheet metal gauge work.

This is known as the manufacturers standard gage for sheet steel. The higher the numbered gauge a piece of metal is the thicker the piece is in millimeters. When figuring out a metal s thickness keep the following facts in mind. The gauge of a sheet of metal is a reference to how thick it is.

Sheet metal gauge size chart gauge or gage sizes are numbers that indicate the thickness of a piece of sheet metal with a higher number referring to a thinner sheet. For other materials such as aluminum and brass the thicknesses will be different. Thus a 10 gauge steel sheet which has a. M d 24 in x 3 ft aluminum sheet metal.

A metal s gauge refers to its thickness which greatly affects its resistance. In most of the world sheet metal thickness is consistently specified in millimeters. Gauges are neither standard nor metric and the values are independent of those measurement systems. That way if we suggest something like switching from 14 to 16ga to tighten a bend radius or save weight you ll know what we mean.

Wire conductor sizes are also measured in gauge and are equivalent to the non ferrous thicknesses listed below but we have an article specific to wire gauge. When drilling or punching a hole in sheet metal you more or less cut out the entire hole at once. Sheet gauges start at 010 and go up to 170 or 7 gauge. The equivalent thicknesses differ for each gauge size standard which were developed based on the weight of the sheet for a given material.

After determining what type and shape of metal you need for your project you will need to figure its gauge. When cutting out a circle one or sometimes two cutting tools are rotated about a center point to. For pricing and availability. Sheet metal is specified in gauge so rather than design in fractions of an inch you should really be specifying ga on part prints.

As the gauge number increases the material thickness decreases. The larger the gauge number the thinner the metal. In the u s the thickness of sheet metal is commonly specified by a traditional non linear measure known as its gauge. If you want to find out what gauge your sheet metal is measure its thickness using a regular tape measure.

A sheet metal gauge sometimes spelled gage indicates the standard thickness of sheet metal for a specific material. You should also know about gauge when discussing sheet metal with your friendly indiana based metal fabricator. The table below provides conversion to inches. Sheet metal gauge and thickness metal sheet thickness is measured in gauge.

A gauge conversion chart can be used to determine the actual thickness of sheet metal in inches or millimeters. Hillman 24 in x 24 in cold rolled steel solid sheet metal.