Laser cutting
Laser cutting has the greatest dimensional accuracy and best tolerances. A vey concentrated beam of light heats the material to melting point and the cut is blown clean by gas.
Prins Staal has two laser cutting machines. One of the newest halls houses the machine that can rapidly cut products into any shape that you require to very close tolerances. This laser cutting machine is used to cut steel up to 20 mm thick and stainless steel up to 15 mm thick. In addition to cutting, it is also possible to have your product engraved. Engraving is useful if you wish to have setting lines and construction lines marked, for example. Other information like position numbers can also easily be provided by engraving. Current capacity is 5.2 kW.
To cut the products, we use nitrogen for stainless steel and oxygen for carbon steel. The use of nitrogen ensures that there is less residual heat, which means that hardly any deformation occurs. Oxygen provides the benefit of a high cutting speed. In both cases the result is an attractive narrow cut and we can work with great precision.
This technique also has its limitations, however. Using nitrogen entails a relatively slow cutting speed, while oxygen can burn the material in the corners of the cut. In addition, not all material thicknesses are suitable for laser cutting and, with only one torch per machine, it is a relatively expensive process.