# plasma cutter?



## johndavid (Oct 19, 2016)

I have a friend who has a plasma cutter, he does car repair work. I am wondering if the plasma cutter could be used to cut stock removal knives. Is there any safety concerns with using this type of cutter with regards to the 'plasma'? Will the heat create hot spots that are hard to sharpen? Anything else im not considering I should know about?


----------



## malexthekid (Oct 19, 2016)

Short answer would be no because you would have to heat treat the knife after bull shaping but prior to final finish (for ease).

Now i am stepping out of my knowledge or memory and i vaguely remember the idea of normalizing steel prior to heat treating to remove those sort of issues and get a consistent HT done... but i could be speaking out of my a$$ there.


----------



## Juan (Oct 19, 2016)

I will throw my 2 cents in, i have a plasma cutter, if your not familiar the way it works it uses electricity to create an arc on the material and air to "blow" through the heated material. this will create heat around the area of the cut and radiate throughout the rest of material similar to a cutting with a torch. benefit of plasma is the high control of the cut and the reduced slag. as far as using it on material maybe a more experienced member can answer but if you would feel ok using a torch to cut it a plasma wont be much different - actually may be less heat.


----------



## jessf (Oct 19, 2016)

You'd want to normalize after cutting but you should do that anyway even with griding. For cutting the initial shape i dont see why not.


----------



## RDalman (Oct 22, 2016)

I think you get some decarb by the cuts, so you'd need to grind that off. And air hardening steels will harden in/near the cuts yes.


----------



## NO ChoP! (Oct 22, 2016)

Hand cutting with a plasma cutter creates a not square edge. Major clean up on a belt will be required. I am looking into a porta band saw style, in which you can set vertically with a table. The consumables are basically only new blades, where as with plasma cutters, the consumable cost is very high.


----------

