I’ve done a lot of 3/4" and 1" in the last couple of months. It is a whole nother animal as compared to anything under .250. Dross behavior changes, bevel gets exaggerated if your are off (torch perpendicular to media - not table, cut speed, and cut height) even a tiny bit that would not matter much on thin.
The speeds they list in the book are really ambitious, at least they are for my Hypertherm 1650 G3 (100a).
Verify your kerf width and have that set correctly in F360 (tool library?)
Square up your steel to the torch. If your table is nuts on level, and torch is indeed square to the table in X and Y, then all you have to do is level the plate and verify square to torch.
Run this file and make sure you are at the listed cut height.
cut height test.tap (224 Bytes)
No really, do it. It matters to cut quality and consumable life. Once that nozzle gets even a little bias, the bevel it leaves is horrific
All is does is goes to a point and lowers to the .06 cut height and ends. Measure with feeler gauges and what ever difference you have make the adjustments to your correct cut height.
As stated above, either edge start, or pre drill holes (.060ish) at each pierce point. Dry run the program, press pause at the the cut start (it will do everything but move the Z axis, so pierce delay). Use a sharpie to mark where the pierce point is. In Fire control, go to the next rapid move to the next pierce point, click on that line in the progress view, then down below in the gcode list, click on Run From LINE. Then you can map out the next point. Rinse and repeat. When you are doen, reload the cut program, set your orientation if needed but DO NOT zero any of your axis again, or all your mapping will be for naught.
Slow your cutting speed down 15-20% from what the chart lists and inspect for cut quality and adjust as needed.
I had a lot of trials and tribulations in this thread to get mine dialed in for thick metal. ; $2000 later, upgraded plasma . Starts to wander off topic around Mar 28.
Good luck!