Cutting Diamond Plate

[JJsCustomDesigns]

Alot of people may already know this... Cut it with the Diamonds down. That means youll have to flip or reverse your drawing before cutting.

I got an order for a sign out of 1/8" Alum diamond Plate. Not a big deal. I thought just for the heck of it i would make a few sample cuts on the unused end of the sheet. I loaded it diamonds up and hit go. The torch touched off... fired and caught one of the Diamonds as it was beginning the cut. I was quick enough to hit stop before it made it too far and wrecked something. Lesson learned for me.

[BrianMick]

A good height control will not have that problem and there is less cleanup on the diamond side if you cut with diamonds up.
Sort of a trade off I guess.
Brian

[JJsCustomDesigns]

I guess it would depend where in the sheet you started. If you start between the diamonds, it would prob be ok. But right next to one....

Potatoe / Patatoe

[Diverdude]

I use sheet cam and made a complete differant set of "tools" for diamond plate verses smooth aluminum. a little slower for the thicker part of the diamond and a little higher on the torch height for the start of the cut. works good and keeps the problems away.

[JJsCustomDesigns]

I also made different tools for Alum.

Since i dont cut whole lot of it. It seemed easier to cut the sign out face down as opposed to diamond up. I dont have a break away torch mount and did not want to take the chance of being without my plasma if i were to break something.

I cut that, pictured above, @ 174ipm - 60amps/140 volts. At that speed with diamonds up... i would think the torch would be bobbing up and down too much.

[Diverdude]

when i cut it by hand I do it diamonds down, but like running it on the machine diamonds up. just easier to clean up after cutting, with it down to taking more chance to mess up the polished surface while cleaning dross. What is your cut height setting? I think mine is around .2 which is more than enough to clear any diamonds.

[JJsCustomDesigns]

.2? Geeez. I used standard settings. .125 pierce / .0625 cutting

I dont recall if the book called out higher cut setting or not. The only burs i had were on a few of the diamonds going around a corner.

[Diverdude]

must be the differance between Hypertherm and Thermal Dynamics on the setting. 1/8" aluminum at 60 amps has a .19 cut height by the book. That gives a lot more clearance than your .0625 when dealing with the diamonds on plate.

[jimcolt]

I used to cut aluminum diamond plate with the diamonds down...then upgraded to a machine with a good height control. I run at .060" off the plate at pretty high speeds (around 150 ipm at 45 amps on 1/8", Hypertherm Powermax85)...the height control works hard, climbs over every bump nicely then just as quickly drops down. This makes for a very consistent cut quality with no cleanup. Without height control I had inconsistency wherever the bumps were...a bead of dross that had to be removed.

Jim Colt

PlasmaCambuild 021.jpg

[BTA Plasma]

If your cutting it diamond down you risk having a pretty gnarly dross on the frontside when you flip it over if your new to cutting diamond plate and not sure about speed settings. I can tell you when I cut it it is always from the top and I pierce at .2 and let tip volts control the height. The problem I have seen is it the piece doesnt lay entirely flat or has a ridge if you set your cut height at .060 you may be in for a surprise. Most already know this that cut daily though.