Welding Tips and Tricks

Since Jody is on a distortion kick here lately, I am needing some advice on controlling distortion when doing a big project with the plasma on sheet metal. We mostly use 16 and 14 gauge sheet and now that we can get 4'x10' sheets we have a lot bigger projects and more noticeable distortion issues. Think this would be a neat video to see.

I cut a lot of 16 ga stainless with plasma. I get my best results with the machine and pressure wide open, a homemade drag shield to keep the tip about 1/16" off the sheet, a guide fence (I've built radius fences for cutting curves, and circular fences for holes), and make the cut as fast as possible.

I saw a very interesting solution for distortion in long robotic mig welds on thin sheet. There was a second head that sprayed CO2 "snow", essentially tiny dry-ice crystals, immediately behind the weld to halt heat propogation and make an extremely narrow HAZ. Not practical for manual plasma, but it opens up ideas for rapid cooling behind the cut.

The first method is adequate for what we do at work, so I'll never justify experimenting with rapid chilling ideas to the boss, so it's just "idle thought" ideas I'm working on.

Steve S

My brother in law told me to have someone take a spray bottle of water and spray water behind the cutter head to keep it cool. I usually don't have much trouble with distortion on steel but the first time I ever messed with stainless was a disaster. I was cutting a wolf and buy the time I got done it was looking me in the eyes