Sometimes instead of welding metal together, you want to cut it apart and a great
way to do that is with a plasma cutter and that's what I want to talk about today. This is the
Tomahawk 375 Air.
the reason why they call it the 375 Air is because it has a built-in air compressor.
It'll cut quarter-inch material with its own built-in air compressor.
It'll cut 3/8 max with external air.
So if you have a shop or home and you have a compressor or you have bottled compressed air,
you can hook it up to the back and cut maximum 3/8 plate.
For demonstration purposes today, we're going to run it
with its own built-in compressor and it'll cut quarter inch max.
Now if you want to cut material that's thicker, let's just say you're going to cut
half inch,
you could step up to the Tomahawk 625. That machine will cut up to
5/8 in. material
And if you need to go thicker than that, like 1-inch, you could step up to the
Tomahawk 1000. That machine will cut 1-inch material.
Another need thing about the Tomahawk 625 series of plasma cutters and
the 1000 is
you can actually hook those up to CNC tables, so if you're going to do any
CNC or repeatable work, the Tomahawk 625
and the Tomahawk 1000 are perfect machines for the
Torchmate 2x2 and the Torchmate 4x4 tables.
And the thing about plasma is it'll cut anything that conducts electricity.
Steel and stainless and aluminum.
So if it conducts electricity, plasma will cut it. That's the neat thing about plasma.
The neat thing also about this machines is all the controls are right here in the front.
No need to go inside the machine or the back of the machine to do anything. You adjust
your air pressure in the front,
you adjust your amperage setting, turn your compressor on and off, your gun
connection and ground connection's right here in the front.
Nothing in the back, nothing to mess around with.
Plasma has a bunch of safety features, too.
You're dealing with hot, hot gas so you've got to be careful.
One of the safety features is this trigger guard. This trigger guard
prevents you from actually premature pulling the trigger.
Also, Lincoln has a Parts in Plac device here where all the parts have to
fit in the torch the right way.
So if you miss a part or you put something in wrong
the machine will not. The next thing you want to do is adjust the machine based
on the material that you're going to cut. I know I'm going to cut something around
quarter inch or so, so I'm going to turn the machine up to about 25 amps.
Now that I got the machine safe, you've actually seen I've got myself safe, also.
And the first thing I've done is I've actually put on
my Lincoln Starlite number 5 glasses. Unlike welding,
it's not as bright as actually welding.
Plasma cutting is bright and there is a little bit of spark, so you want to protect your eyes and your face.
Number 5 minimum shade. I'm also protecting my hair and the top of my head with my
Lincoln doo rag.
And I've also got my flame-retardant Lincoln shirt on
with my Steelworker gloves, so I'm all protected
and ready to make a cut. But before I do that there's a couple things I want to go over.
Plasma cutting will actually tell you when you're going too fast or too slow,
and one way it tells you that is if you go way too fast the spark will come
right towards you, back on you. You don't want that.
You want the sparks and all the dross to go down on the floor.
So if you're going the rights speed
all the sparks and the dross will go on the floor.
making the right cut. Remember plasma will cut anything that conducts electricity.
You can go left to right, right to left, it really doesn't matter.
Alright, we just made a cut, as you saw, and remember you want all the dross and all the spark
to go towards the floor.
Again, if you're going too fast, the sparks will come to you and won't properly cut all the way through, so you want to make sure all the
sparks are going to the floor,
drop the piece off, you're ready to go. Remember, you can make circles, you can cut the corners, you can cut
the whole piece,
or you can use a guide, and actually put a guide down.
Cut a straight line if you need a straight line, cut a triangle.
It's totally up to you.
Because the plasma curve is on an angle, it actually cuts on an angle.
As you get towards the end of your piece,
you actually want to angle the torch back a little bit, so you make sure
you nip that edge off so you get an actual drop cut. If you don't and you're too much at a ninety,
it might not cut that corner, it might just hang there.
Remember, never use the torch as a hammer.
If it doesn't cut all the way through, take a hammer,
knock the piece off. But again, if you come across, angle back a little bit
as you get forward the end, it'll drop right off.
Then what you're left with is a little bit of dross on the back.
You can either take a a small file or you could take another piece of material
and actually knock some of that dross off if you need to.
A small file would work really well, too.
This is the 375 Air. Remember, we have the Tomahawk 625
and the Tomahawk 1000.
If you want anymore information on Lincoln Electric products,
visit our website at wwww.lincolnelectric.com