Fine Cut consumables and Aluminum

[Largemouthlou]

Jim, I did my first hand held cuts yesterday with the 1250 using the 80 amp shielded supplied with the hand held torch and it was awesome, going back to cut up my water table by hand today.. Hope to have some cuts with the cnc very soon.

I will be mostly cutting 1/8 and 1/4 aluminum with some smaller gauges thrown in that have lots of lettering in different fonts.

I was thinking the fine cut consumables would fit the bill but realised that there was no study done on these when I did a search here and found your statement.

"We do not have settings for aluminum with the FineCut consumables because our process engineers never tested aluminum cutting with the FineCuts during their development. I do not have a better answer! I have used them and developed my own parameters for up to 1/8", they work quite well in this range."

Will the fine cut's fit my needs?? If so can you help me with the parameters??

Hope ya had a great Thanksgiving and thank you VERY much for your time : )

[jimcolt]

The Finecut consumables work very well up through 1/8" aluminum, and some have reported use on 3/16". There just is not a cut chart in the manual that provides starting guidelines for aluminum.

I always suggest using the cut chart for steel....the height is the same, the pierce height is the same, and the speeds are close. Slower speed will square up the edge, higher speed will minimize dross. It is also a good idea to use mig welding anti spatter spray on the front of the torch, and to wipe the spatter off periodically as the aluminum tends to build up.

Jim

[Largemouthlou]

Thank you Jim,, : )