Field Test: The Drill Attachment vs The Tin Snips
I Was Sure That Drill Attachment In The Video Was A Gimmick. So I Put It On The Sheet Metal My Tin Snips Gave Up On.
September 2026 · 4 min read
Bev took this from the porch before she went in for the ice pack. Twelve feet of flashing. Four feet cut. Right hand done for the day.
If you saw the video of a little silver gearbox rolling a straight line through sheet metal on the end of a drill, you thought what I thought. Cute. It will jam, wander, or fold the sheet the first time it meets real flashing.
I had that typed into the comments before I deleted it. Because there was a coop in my backyard with two sides still open, a hundred feet of hardware cloth on the grass, and a right hand that would not close around a coffee cup. I am sixty-six. I climbed poles for the electric co-op for thirty-four years. I could not get through a Saturday with a pair of tin snips.
So I bought the thing I had laughed at and put it on the same sheet, with the snips on the sawhorse next to me. This is what happened.
What I tried first, and how it went
- Aviation snips. A hundred squeezes per strip, the offcut curling into my knuckles. Blister on the thumb by strip four.
- Angle grinder. Sparks over dry grass next to a coop full of straw, and a burnt edge that rusts first. Bev at the back door with her arms crossed.
- Jigsaw with a metal blade. Screamed, shook the sheet off the sawhorse, chewed the edge. Two bent blades in four feet.
- Score and snap with a knife. Works on thin aluminum. On galvanized steel the knife skates and you cut your glove.
- The sheet metal shop. Eighty-five dollars for six pieces, ready Thursday. The coop was open on Saturday.
Virgil, seventy-three. Thirty-four years cutting duct. He is the reason I stopped blaming my hands.
Do the arithmetic Virgil made me do
Snips take about a one inch bite on twenty six gauge steel. Forty feet of flashing is five hundred squeezes, every one with the offcut curling up into your fingers. Then a hundred feet of hardware cloth, one strand at a time. No sixty-six year old hand is built for that. No thirty year old hand is either. It just heals faster.
And snips cut from one side, so the blade pushes the sheet up while your hand pushes it down. That is why the edge curls, and why the line wanders once your grip gets tired. A ragged edge and a sore hand are not the price of doing it yourself. They are the price of the wrong tool.
Everything the garage had, laid out and beaten. The strip on the right is four feet of snip work when the hand gives out.
What that Saturday actually cost
Eighty-five dollars at the shop and a five day wait. A thirty-eight dollar sheet scrapped when the grinder burned the edge. A neighbor who lost a machine shed to a spark in a hayfield two summers ago. And a cortisone shot in March that I was undoing one squeeze at a time, with the surgery the doctor keeps mentioning at the end of it. That is what sent me back to the video.
So I ordered the thing I had made fun of
A cast aluminum head the size of my fist, two hardened steel wheels, one of them a toothed gear, and a hex shank that goes in any drill chuck. Two wrenches, a hex key and a stabilizer bar in the box. The sheet slides between the wheels. The drill turns the gear wheel, the two wheels roll the sheet through and shear it from both sides at once, like scissors that never open and close. The drill does the squeezing. Your hand steers.
"The drill does the squeezing your hand can't."
Two hardened wheels shear the sheet from both sides while the drill turns them. Flat edge, no curl, no sparks. Fits any standard drill. It is called the Savary SteelCut Pro.
The test: same sheet, snips on the sawhorse
It lives in the drill case now, next to the bits.
Sheet between the wheels. Drill on slow. Steer the line.
Two wheels shear, nothing squeezes
The cut happens from both sides at once, so the edge lies flat instead of curling into your fingers.
No sparks, no scream
It rolls, it does not grind. No sparks over the straw, no burnt edge, no ear plugs.
Fits the drill you own
Hex shank, any chuck, cordless or corded. Stabilizer bar, two wrenches and a hex key in the box.
Honest about what it does
Flat sheet up to about twenty two gauge steel, thicker in aluminum and copper. The flats of a ribbed panel, not the ribs. Not a plate steel tool.
To the men in the comments. I was one of you.
Same photo, different metal. Loose bearing, gear teeth stripped by the second sheet, a stabilizer bar that does not fit, three black and white pictures for instructions. Virgil keeps a dead one on his counter. The real one is sold direct from the maker, and it is not on Amazon.
So did mine, for the last six inches. Cut forty feet on a Saturday, then open a jar on Sunday.
The flats, yes, clean. Across the ribs, no. Anyone who says otherwise is selling the twenty dollar one.
Set the wheel pressure and run the drill slow. Wide open, it skates. Halfway on the trigger, it feeds itself. It is on the card in the box.
Other men who stopped losing to the snips
"Watched the video three times figuring it was a trick. Forty sheets of barn siding trimmed in an afternoon and I never picked up the snips except for the ribs."
"Bought the cheap copy first. Gear wheel stripped halfway down the second sheet. This one is a different animal. Should have just bought the real one."
"I am 71 with arthritis in both hands. Cutting flashing was the one job I had handed to my son-in-law. Not anymore."
Real footage, no trick. That rolling cut is the five hundred squeezes your hand used to make.
There is a sheet of metal waiting on you this fall
The snips are fine for the first strip. You find out on the fourth one, with the edge curling into your knuckles and half the job still on the sawhorse. Or you slide the sheet between two wheels, pull the trigger halfway, and steer. Fifty-nine dollars, shipped free, thirty days to send it back. I know which one I would rather explain to Bev.
Workshop Field Notes is a reader-supported publication. This is a first-person account from a private owner and reflects his personal experience. The Savary SteelCut Pro is a drill-driven sheet metal cutting attachment intended for flat sheet up to approximately 1 mm (22 gauge) in steel and up to 1.2 mm in aluminum and copper. A variable speed power drill is required and is not included. Set the cutting wheel pressure before use, run the drill at low speed, keep hands clear of the cutting wheels and always wear gloves and eye protection. It is not intended for plate steel, for cutting across the ribs of corrugated panels, or as a replacement for an angle grinder on heavy stock. Results vary by material and technique. This publication is not affiliated with DeWalt, Milwaukee, Makita or any tool manufacturer.
