Hello everyone. I wanted to make a post on cutting SS. Now, I want to say that a couple years ago when I got the table I was searching around about ideas on the best ways to get minimal finishing work when cutting stainless while using essentially, “shop air.” This being opposed to nitrogen as is used at my day job on a laser. Great results, of course. But so many plasma videos have sort of made it seem that any hope at a decent cut using air is a lost cause. Which I’ve found is partially true. However, I’ve found that an approach to cut settings that seems counterintuitive to how you set a laser seems to make a huge difference.
To get down to brass tacks here, take 14ga SS. I’m using the Razor Cut 45. And with SS you need more power than mild. However, I started getting great results doing the opposite of what you’d do to dial in a laser nitrogen cut. For this example, 40 amps. 60 -65ipm. I’ve cut this same thing at 80ipm and yes it cut, but looked like the ceiling of a cave.
In conclusion, im only using a CamAir QC3 desiccant dryer that im kinda lazy about drying the beads, and im getting great results cutting SS. All in all: Higher power, and slow. Im not going to pretend that I know what the dynamic is that gets this result, but its the difference of an 1/8” stalagtite hanging off your piece, or one that’s more like 1/32”.
Maybe I’ve got an anomaly here, but I’ve tested over and over and I see an improvement. So, let me know if I’m off-base and I’m getting lucky guys. Lol Hope this helps if I’m “kinda” right. Cheers!
Here soon I’m going to cut a sign out of my SS rem from the project that spurred my post, so yes I will for sure do a pic this time! This next one will actually be a better example as it will be more detailed than the last one.
That sounds about where I’m sort of thinking and seeing results as well. I’ve cut 10ga as fast as seems reasonable at full power, but it just seems like any extra time you give the air to blast the material away actually makes the cut that much cleaner.
That said, I’ve actually had to attempt a cut of some parts on laser with oxygen, (during the supply chain craziness awhile ago), and it was a worse cut than plasma and air. Lol so go figure. Definitely more nitrogen in air we breathe than a tank of pure oxygen no doubt.
Ok, so to follow-up, I did just cut 3 more pieces with the exact same consumables and same dryness of air. Got pics as well, but pixel count is too high. Now, do most of you guys post pics from a desktop after resizing? Or what is the quickest way?
Oh yep it did! Thanks for the help, however, my iPhone 11 apparently doesn’t have that option after the photo is taken. Did a back door via phone either way. Lol
That said, majority of this piece was exactly like this but for 2 spots. And that includes opposing sides of the action of the swirl, (and those spots were under a 16th that came off with thumbnail).
My thought is, (and that goes for mild steel as well even if it always seems to be more smooth), a ton of this is due to line changes in design/programming. Long idea short: any time you can take a small detail and make it one arc instead of 3, (especially with harder materials like ss), the beam has that much less recoup time to continue a true cut in case of any vibration via jolts to the axes.
More pics coming of full pieces. And I will explain how my change in drafting may be a huge factor.
This project was the one that got me thinking. 10ga SS, and after taking a flap disc to the back, I had next to no needle filing to the back to have it ready for bead blast. This image is borrowed obviously, but I made huge edits, as you can see. Ergo, every line I made was smooth. A to B, then again. 45 @ 50ipm. Very smoky, but better by leaps than many 14ga pieces before
R.I.P.