Posted: 12/21/2025 11:31:09 PM EDT
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Anyone with experience plasma cutting nickel alloys, like 718 and 625? And maybe some 15-5PH stainless too? Just how good is it possible to repeatedly cut these metals, without forming a lot of dross on the bottom side? I guess you would control the air flow, height of the head, not sure what else. But is it realistic to be able to make a clean bottom or back side of the cut? Of do you just need to suck it up and grind that stuff off? At work, we cut 718, 625, 15-5ph, some Ti (mostly 6-4), occasional carbon plate from 1" to 3" thick (that is about the min thickness we have done, and 3" is the max thickness the plasma torch can fit under the head. We are just cutting a straight line across the width. Could be a few other stainless grades, but those are the bulk of what we cut for plate. Our other plate on the other side of pittsburgh takes the plates and anneals, levels/flattens, then blasts and pickles them. They they get cut to ordered WxL. The other plant complains about the dross, as it can mark the rolls in the leveler, maybe breaks off and gets rolled into a plate, etc. they don't want to hand grind, and we really were never set up to do that with all the plate handling, flipping them over, etc |
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By no means am I an expert. But it sounds to me as though you could run some experiments to see if you can dial in a better result experimentally. Maybe take a plate of a given material and make a series of single cuts with different flow settings, etc., and see what, if any, gives you a cleaner cut. |
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OP....this may not be something you want to hear, but it may be something the company needs to hear. Start to price a water jet table for cutting these materials, as well as cutting other materials the plasma can't cut. A buddy owns a structural steel fab shop, and was running a plasma table. They sold the plasma table, bought a 6x12 water jet, and were able to do much more in terms of production, and almost zero de-burring/slag removal of the cut edges. And zero heat affected zones and warping due to plasma cutting. Post heat treatment was eliminated. They have also brought on jobs using aluminum. Material thickness is usually .50" to 1.5", with occasional 2.0".....all the way down to .050 to .060 sheet metal. . |
Occid Vel Occisus Est !!
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We have water jet cutters - just not here Never heard of one set up on a rolling mill I am figuring I will have to do some sort of DOE on cutting parameters to come up with the best setting per grade/size. But I was just wondering if their expectations are valid? Is it possible to produce a dross free cut edge? And some metals given how they oxidize maybe the Ar is needed, but that might be an entirely new plasma cutter assembly. That isn’t going to happen. I am not even seeing settings for gas flow on our HMI (human machine interface) pages for the plasma. It’s not even really connected to the rest of our network. Who knows why that was. The only settings I see are height , cutter voltage, cutter current, width and thickness, and alloy. Nothing about gas flow or speed. This plasma table was really included to cut up cobbles (scrap) on the mill that couldn’t be rolled to a coil. I think all the plate stuff we are doing was an after thought after the mill was ordered and paid for. Here is a decent video of the mill by the company that installed it  ATI: Flat Rolled Products |
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Originally Posted By IdahoPCCinc: OP....this may not be something you want to hear, but it may be something the company needs to hear. Start to price a water jet table for cutting these materials, as well as cutting other materials the plasma can't cut. A buddy owns a structural steel fab shop, and was running a plasma table. They sold the plasma table, bought a 6x12 water jet, and were able to do much more in terms of production, and almost zero de-burring/slag removal of the cut edges. And zero heat affected zones and warping due to plasma cutting. Post heat treatment was eliminated. They have also brought on jobs using aluminum. Material thickness is usually .50" to 1.5", with occasional 2.0".....all the way down to .050 to .060 sheet metal. . high definition plasma is a thing and will get you closer to no dross on thicker materials but I doubt its totally clean. High Def typically uses high pressure inert gasses and does produce a much cleaner cut, laser like on thinner materials, once you get into multiple inches im not sure. I use a hand held plasma for cutting hardened 1095 sheet...only .06. works well but its very sensitive to speed and how new the torch consumables are. |