I have been working with plasma cutting for a while now through my work. Sorry to say I don't have my own setup and I wasn't even part of the construction of the water table we have, but I have pretty much been the exclusive user of the machine and I like to take pride in what I cut. One thing that has been plaguing me ever since I started was the cut quality I have been getting with stainless steel cuts. I do a lot of stainless cutting from thin gauge to 1" thick plate but mostly 10ga to 3/8" plate. I've been able to cut well enough to get parts out the door but I know that I can do better but as I've looked around trying to find tips, tricks, procedures and a helping hand it's been severely lacking. So I'm going to start this forum for general discussion about stainless steel cutting with plasma machines.

The machine is an HPR 260 HyDef Plasma situated on a 10' x 20' water table, and it runs mild steel like no other. But I get excessive taper on all sides of my parts when I run any thickness of S.S. Also, and I know it's very difficult, the holes do not come out at all. I literally have to oversize all my holes about an 1/8" in order for the bolts to fit through. It's not that big of a problem considering our parts but I know this plaz can do do better and I want to get it there. Thanks for everybodies input.