Thread: Laser cut 10mm steel pricing?

What do you mean by manually? Milled? Generally they are quite different processes. Laser will do fairly intricate designs, but the walls will not be straight or perpendicular. Milling obviously has a corner radius.

Can you post a design drawing?

Originally Posted by pippin88

What do you mean by manually? Milled? Generally they are quite different processes. Laser will do fairly intricate designs, but the walls will not be straight or perpendicular. Milling obviously has a corner radius.

Can you post a design drawing?

I mean just cutting with a 1mm slitting disc and 125mm angle grinder. Not large dimensions so doable.

Last time I had some done, about 10 years ago, there was a minimum price of $75. That was with a CAD drawing done, all they had to do was insert the flash drive and convert it to the program the laser used. The cost is dependant on the thickness and length of cut plus material. If you go with a sketch, including any holes required, they should be able to give a quote to do the job. Using the 1 mm blades, can be an expensive way to go, as the material is 10 mm thick, I'd go to the band saw. If you have access to a plasma cutter, that is another option. Could you post a diagram of what it is you'd like to do.
Kryn

On page two of this discussion in welding (https://www.woodworkforums.com/showth...=188252&page=2) there is a bit of talk about thickness of materials. At 12mm a decent plasma will do it but you could possibly do it with oxy (plasma makes using templates easy though). I'd try using one disc to exhaustion and see how much cross section you cut and how long it takes. depending on the length you need to cut you may find that you will go through $100's of discs and would perhaps be better hiring a plasma cutter. To get a price or laser you are really going to have to get someone to quote on a sketch. I suspect you will be in the hundreds but whether one or two or five or six I don't know.

Michael

I get 10mm parts cut a bit. normally 50 or so at a time, Parts that are 250x50 with 4 holes and some curves cost about $25 including material.
To cut 10mm though the lasers have to use oxy not nitrogen so the cut is not as clean as on the thinner parts, the oxy helps the cut but adds burning, especial at sharp corners were the machine has to slow down. It is still a really good cut though, as good or better than a bandsaw.

Originally Posted by Michael G

On page two of this discussion in welding (https://www.woodworkforums.com/showth...=188252&page=2) there is a bit of talk about thickness of materials. At 12mm a decent plasma will do it but you could possibly do it with oxy (plasma makes using templates easy though). I'd try using one disc to exhaustion and see how much cross section you cut and how long it takes. depending on the length you need to cut you may find that you will go through $100's of discs and would perhaps be better hiring a plasma cutter. To get a price or laser you are really going to have to get someone to quote on a sketch. I suspect you will be in the hundreds but whether one or two or five or six I don't know.

Michael

It's ok, I just did a job for someone where 50x 8mm bar was required. I cut all of it using an angle grinder and there were around 92 cuts and used 12, 125mm cutting discs. Did 42 welds and some were around 100mm long. I used TIG for the lot, time consuming yes, but it's how I weld best and they were very neat. All on display in a shop.