A plasma cutter is a versatile piece of equipment. Able to cut through varying thicknesses of steel and leave a relatively clean cut. Plasma cutting began its origins as plasma welding. This was a widely used way of cutting in the 1960s. Alterations were made to the welding system to turn it into a cutting tool, of which made it a productive way to cut sheet metal and plate in the 1980s. It had the advantages over traditional “metal against metal” cutting of producing no metal chips, giving accurate cuts, and producing a cleaner edge than oxy-fuel cutting. Early plasma cutters were large, somewhat slow and expensive and, therefore, tended to be dedicated to repeating cutting patterns in a “mass production” mode. A plasma cutter works by blowing a gas at high...
