NEED HELP CUTTING CHECKERPLATE

[jeeplogic83]

I just cut 1/8 in alum last week. here is what I ran into. I set my speed at 96ipm and the heat at 45amp. I have a hypertherm 1000 with the fine tips. I ran into alot of warping. To counter act the warping I set weights on the peice. You will have to be very alert where your next cut will be or you will crash you head. If your trying to do a checker board you should alternate your cuts if you can Upper right to lower left. kind of like tightning lug nut on your tire. Heat disipates so quickly in alum that it should be cooled down enough to minimize warping. leave a minimum of .15 inch at the boarder of each square this will prevent dropping peices you wanted to stay.

[jeeplogic83]

I forgot if you have the ability to use cutter comp and lead in and out all the better.

[admin]

jeeplogic83 has some sound advice.

I would also recommend cutting the plate upside down unless you have a very good auto height control system that can compensate for the raised checks in the plate fast enough. The downside to cutting the plate upside down is that the slag cleanup will need to be performed on the good side of the plate.

Remember that you MUST travel slower than you normally would on standard 1/8 thick sheet because the checks in the plate make the plate that much thicker in those areas. Use these tips and let us know your results.

admin