Laser cut stainless steel plates with a protective plastic film -

Laser cut stainless steel

Today’s activity in the factory has given me the opportunity to talk about laser cut components using our Trumpf 3030 3KW fiber laser. This was an interesting job using stainless steel of 2mm gauge with a 4 thou plastic fiber laser coating to produce a batch of 300 laser cut brackets.

Initially we start by laying out the components on the sheet for maximum utilization of the material. There’s not much wastage here!

The individual components are cut out using the laser in a particular way which is not always obvious. If you look carefully at the drawing of the “red” component, you’ll see at certain points there are small yellow lines. These are called “lead ins” and correspond to the start of the laser cutting point. This allows for a nice clean edge and in the end the initial area where cutting starts from will be on the piece of material that’s thrown away. The advantage of this is that no burn marks are seen on the piece of material you want to keep, only on the scrap. These yellow lead in lines are seen on all areas where cutting occurs.

When cutting metal with a plastic coating using a laser there are two processes which occur. In the first instance the laser beam passes through the plastic and metal and a “vapour” cut sticks the plastic to the metal sheet. Finally a cut is made using nitrogen to cut the part out.

Need some assistance?

Are you looking for someone to laser cut components for you? If you have a project that needs some input from a friendly sheet metal company then we are here to help. We can look at your designs and suggest areas that can be improved with a view to saving you money. Always good news! Simply send us your drawings to sales@vandf.co.uk and we will take a look for you.

Would you like to see more images of laser cut components to give you some ideas for your design? Take a look here: Pinterest Board We have many examples of our work on our Pinterest Boards and gallery pages within our website.