In this episode, Jim Colt, an industry veteran from Hypertherm, talks about cutting diamond plate with plasma. Visit https://www.maverickcnc.com/ for more information on all of our plasma cutting tables.

MaverickCNC plasma cutting tables cut vehicle custom parts, signs, artwork and logos from Diamond plate with Powermax plasma. Using the Powermax plasma with a mechanized torch and Arc Voltage Height Control, Jim walks you through cutting anti-skid plate, diamond plate, traction plate with CNC plasma machines.

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Video description :

Hi, Jim Colt here with MaverickCNC, we have a Hypertherm plasma cutting system on this machine.

Just a little tip, we get questions all the time about cutting diamond plate or tread plate, often it’s aluminum, decorative aluminum tread plate or steel tread plate, it might be used in a truck body and because it has all those little bumps, all those little treads on it, a lot of people ask questions about it. It really depends which way you cut it, there are two choices one is to cut it with the bumps up, one is to cut it with the bumps down.

If you have a machine with no height control or poor height control – cut it with the bumps down because your going to have collusions, your going to have problems with the bumps on it. If you have a machine with a good quality integrated height control, like this MaverickCNC has, put the bumps up and your going to get the best quality.

What you want to do for the thickness rating of it, the nominal thickness of the material, not including the bump is the speed rating and the spec that you should actually set for, right out of the cut charts that are built into the CNC control or in the Hypertherm manual so put the bumps up, cut it like it’s just a piece of eighth inch steel, has an eighth inch nominal thickness and your going to get the best cut quality. It’s kind of fun to watch as the torch height control accurately climbs over every one of those bumps without making contact with the plate.

Very good process and it’s a good way to cut that material where it’s a material that people thought, in the past, they had to cut it with a hand plasma torch or with a shear and today it can be cut on CNC cutting tables.

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