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Whether your shop is machine cutting with a laser, flame, or plasma table, the process of manually deburring flat metal parts is very similar. The cutting machine operator unloads cut parts, places another sheet onto the table, and activates the machine. While the machine is cutting the new sheet, the table operator manually grinds any burrs or slag off the edges of newly cut parts. As the operator finishes grinding parts, the cutting table has completed its next operation. The...

Many terms are used to describe metal finishing: straight graining, grinding, finishing, straight-lining, brushing, timesaving, #4 finish, dairy finish, sanding, polishing, and I could keep going. It does not matter what you call it, the beauty is in the eye of the beholder (i.e. your customer). These expectations can vary from aesthetics to engineering callouts and quality control tolerances, or a combination of the two. Whether you are just starting your research, a growing company looking to bring this process…

It does not matter if you are cutting your parts with a state-of-the-art laser or hand-holding a plasma torch, cut quality and consistency will affect down-stream processes. A perfectly square edge from your fiber laser sounds good in theory, but what will you do when your assembly workers start getting cut from the sharp edges? Let’s say your largest customer just added a deburring/edge quality requirement on all of their prints. Do you have enough capacity to accommodate this request?...