1st Use Plasma Cutter Story For Beginners

Have you ever held a lightsaber? I may have.

The Star Wars Wiki, says that lightsabers have no feel because the "blade" has no weight. That means a lightsaber-wielder has no definitive sense of the light blade's orientation. That also perfectly describes a plasma cutter, which, unlike a lightsaber, is very real.

I wielded one of these mysterious tools last week at the hackLAB, Plasma cutting is an alternative to using an angle grinder, hacksaw, or acetylene torch. Remember that scene in that garbage-barge of a movie Phantom Menace where Qui-Gon Jinn and "Rent-Boy" Renton cut through some blast doors with lightsabers? That. That's what plasma cutting is. The advantage of using a plasma cutter is that you can "draw" cuts in metal as if you are using a big pen.

You can make curved cuts in tight spaces where an angle grinder or hacksaw won't fit. With skill, you can make cuts much cleaner than an angle grinder as well. 

A hand-held, plasma-cutting wand is about the size of a stage microphone or a small flashlight. The wand has a thick tube that's as inflexible as a power strip's cable. Inside of that tube is compressed air running from either a tank or a shop compressor. The electricity comes from a big metal box that is nothing more than a gigantic power supply, not unlike the one you have running your home-built PC. 

A plasma cutting machine doesn't make much sound on its own. The migraine-inducing-hiss you hear in the attached video is compressed air rushing through a small nozzle at the end of the cutting wand at about 60psi. The compressed air is ionized and formed by the nozzle into a small and controlled electric arc. A grounding clamp is placed on the piece of metal to be cut. The ground clamp gives all the excited electricity a reason to leave the wand and complete the circuit. 

I held the wand about two centimeters from a piece of scrap metal, forcing the electricity to arc and create a jet of plasma in the cone of rushing air.

Plasma is hotter than your memories of that one math teacher from 1987.

Plasma is so hot it turns steel into goo.

Through my mask, I could see the metal of the plate, on which I was practicing my cutting, turn to mud where my cutting wand hovered. Quick aside: Engines mated to automatic transmissions have flex-plates instead of flywheels. Flex-plates serve the same purpose as flywheels. The only difference is that flex-plates are thinner and really do flex and bend a little during acceleration. 

The plate metal really turned to goo! And those ooey-gooey blobs of orange-red snot dripped down through the fissure created by that compressed ionized gas. Some blobs clung to the cooler edges of the cut. But most blobs were blown to the floor and sides of the flex-plate by the compressed air in a mesmerizing sparkgasm—a juicy explosion of orange that any director of photography would showcase.

Plasma cutting is an eerie feeling. To continue with the lightsaber analogy, everything felt weightless. There was no resistance as the metal melted. I felt no kickback from the jet of ionized gas. The cutting wand didn't vibrate. The globs of gooey metal offered no tactile feedback as they dropped or blew away. The only sensation I felt is when a blob or two hit the mesh of my new running shoes.

What makes plasma cutting eerie is that you don't touch the work surface. I hovered the cutting wand less than an inch from the flex-plate. There was no way to feel the exact location of the jet of plasma. Looking didn't help much either because my vision was dimmed and limited by the wielding mask.

A plasma cutter works fast. That's why every shop has one. Rusted and worn material is cut away in seconds rather than thirty minutes with grinders or hours with hand tools. Cleanup is minimal, and a tech can move on to more lucrative endeavors. 

I have more practicing to do. My cuts were all wobbly like a first grader's crayon drawing, but I also didn't want to stop! I became a man working with Metal! Hisss! Phhhishhh! Crackletron! Phbbbthhhhs—sparks everywhere!

My ball hair is now thicker then a Steven King novel!