Covell's Tips for Snips

God bless you for sharing with us your useful tips and tricks

What's the point of the yellow handle ones?

OMG, all these years I've been using them wrong, thanks Ron. What else do I need to relearn?

Never heard of the turning the snips until now

Great learning video! Thanks.

Give the man an Oscar !❤

Ron - Excellent video! Thank you. I need to cut a large piece of 24 ga sheet metal. Is there a way to cut that in half without having to get both red and green tools like you show at the very end of this video? Thanks.

Can someone recommend a good brand? I'm looking to buy a set. Thanks in advance..

Thanks so much Ron!

I have been using the Midwest offset snips for years, cutting enough metal that I need a new set every 3 months. My aviation snips rarely come out of the tool box as they are less versatile than the offsets but do come in handy from time to time.

I love reading the comments on these vids. So many good souls learning and thankful for it.

Pretty formulaic.. Why memorize?
Can't ya just look at the snips off-set angle, and run the keeper edge along the straighter angle so it won't bend as much?
The up-curving discard material clearly will always be opposite your tightest curve, because it doesn't contact the blades after cut.
It's just like holding scissors upside down; should be pretty obvious.

If Red and Green are so good, then why do they make Yellow? What is Yellow for?

Very clear explanation.Thankyou

Thank you sir!

Midwest offset snips are the best of the best

I guess you have heard it many times before, but you are a fantastic teacher!

I feel like such a rookie now.

Thank you so much for sharing these skills. Much appreciated

Usted es lo máximo.

Which brand of snips do you recommend?

I often use right and left snips with handles set at 45 and even 90 degrees from the cutting head, these are great for taking smaller sections out of large sheets in my storage area without having to move the large sheet away from the rack. Rough cut a piece than trim up to the final size on the bench or with my Beverly shear.

Great tutorial, I dont own aviation snips because i dont know how to use them properly, now i know i just need the red and green type. Thanks

Nice, thanks

Thanks for the video! I am not a metalworker, but if you could only have one “all-purpose” snips, which would you recommend? Any combination of tin or aircraft snips, regular or offset, regular or long length, red or green?

Amazing! 😍Thank you!🙏

Watching a master at work

I love these guys❤️😩😇😌

Never cut towards yourself. Always cut towards someone else.

Absolutely perfect educational video!! Thank you so much!

I was really hopeing to learn something. I knew all of this. But please make more videos ! This was very in depth and just an all around great video !

man his cuts were so precise, a true professionAL

I’ve been an electrician for 5 years and never knew about this.

I think this is the most comprehensive video I've seen on... well... anything. Like... this is a video to that should be printed out and pinned to the cork board as a daily reference while working......

Yippie I got the right snips Green lol thanks for the video.

As a 35 year sheet metal mechanic, I appreciate your tutorial. As you most likely know, once you use the offset aviation snips you'll throw away that standard pair. You could add a video on the difference the offset jaw makes, especially when cutting holes. I also agree that there is really no place for straight aviation snips.
thanks for sharing your knowledge! Craftsman are hard to find now a days.

This has been really helpful

There are 2 design decisions in snips which are most important. First is if they "run through" or not. Means you can cut through the material and the material will run past the snips.
You can see this solved by using both snips in the last part of the video and cut out a section, with run through snips you don´t need to do that.
Second is if they are left right or straight. Best decision is to get RH/LH run through snips, you can cut anything with those.

I bought a pair of snips from you at Hershey years ago. Still use them

you are awesome! thank you for this perfect instructional video!

I found one use for straight snips...to get into and enlarge a hole I drilled too small to get the left or right-cut snips in. After it gets large enough I use the other snips because straight snips are USELESS!

Thanks

Brilliant demo!

Thanks Ron, that was great! I watch this from time to time to make sure I'm doing it right.

Just wow....To the shed!!!

Excellent video. Great tips. I like to know the “whys” of doing. You gave some of that. Never knew any of this. Thanks.

This was the kind of detail I was looking for. I'm new to using this tool. Thanks for making this video! 🙂

I've been searching for an hour to understand exactly how left/right handed snips function and from this video it finally makes perfect sense. One of the two blades is always the waste side and one is the good side. As for left/right labels, whether the waste blade is left or right depends entirely on what angle are looking at the snips. But we call one left-handed and one right-handed just as a convention to distinguish them as chiral objects.

It's not that the snips magically can only bend the metal only on one side. In fact depending on the precise angle you hold the tool it will bend both sides in varying amounts. The key point is that when you hold the tool at a good angle you can have three nice things happening all at once: 1) you 'zero out' the deformation on the good side so it is straight, and 2) the good side will miss the pivot even though it is straight 3) the waste-side metal will deform and move away from the pivot. So not only does the right tool angle give you a clean cut but you won't have to fight the material as you push the tool deeper in the cut.

All the funky bends and curves in the tin snips are carefully put there to let you get great results but you need good technique.

I bought right handed aviation snips to cut some thin gauged steel because I didn’t know any better. Walked away with messy edges, frustration and bandaids. Thank you for showing me the beauty of tin snips, Mr. Covell.