I initially purchased this purelly because I was sick of not being able to cut an accurate straight line through thin guage sheet metal over a short distance (300mm) without having to trim it up afterwards or having a lot of creases a hand shear makes.
It does that well with a minimum of distortion , but you do have to be carefull of it's considerable weight if it isn't perminantely located due to space limitations. I have mine mounted to a piece of h/duty angle iron and that is inserted in a stable set of portable jaws ,which slide under a set of storage racks.