• Preorders are LIVE for the 2024 BladeForums Traditional Knife

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    Delivery expected in Q4 2024, hopefully before the holidays.

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Plasma cuttin ti?

breathing vaporized Vanadium is VERY BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH>>>>>>>>>>>>>



DO NOT DO THIS!!!! You will get very sick!!!!!!!!!!
 
What Tom Mayo said!!!!!!!

Plus I think you might get a fire going that might be hard to put out.

Plus the edges would be really ragged.
 
Phil Wilson uses one and has used one for quite a while.I have a brother that has one and uses it quite a bit with his business.The folks I have talked to that use them really love them,but I sure would not want to have to breathe that stuff,either.Where I work they have several of them but I have never seen them work.One of the millwrights told me they no longer have anyone working there that knows how to run them!Thats gov't. $ working for you! O'l Phil Wilson is a great knifemaker and a hell of a good guy.If you talk to him he would be more than glad to inform you about plasma cutters.He is a maker and knife writer for KNIVES ILLUSTRATED.O'l Phil is one of our Calif.makers.I lost Phil's phone number,but I beleive you can contact him through KI. Phil is a pioneer of S30V,used to have to buy it in BIG slabs,so he bought the plasma cutter and used it quite a bit. Good luck,guy.
 
had someone supply the piece to make a knife with. with a resperator on i got such a mean headache that i won't use it at all.
 
I used to cut all my titanium with a plasma cutter. After cutting I ground off the heat affected zone (HAZ). The grinder ran at 3000 sfpm.

One weekend my wife and daughter were gone so I went into our closed garage and prepared a bunch of ti for the Oregon show. After a few hours of cutting and grinding I could not see across the garage because of the smoke. I didn't notice the smoke because I was concentrating on the grinder. I didn't think much about it because I was wearing a mask. However I could smell the titanium.

I spent the next four months coughing like I had pneumonia. I also had spontaneous nose bleeds, migraine headaches and other problems.

Now I cut all titanium with a band saw and grind with a variable speed grinder with the speed set slow enough that I don't get any sparks. I grind without a mask and a fan blowing at my back. I also use dust collectors with water buckets to catch stray sparks. If I ever smell a hint of titanium I add more fans blowing at right angles.

1)Don't screw around with your health. Vanadium is poison. A mask does not make you safe. If you can smell it you are breathing it.

2)IMHO a bandsaw is faster than plasma cutter when you consider the time required to remove the HAZ.
 
wow, that bandsaw sounds like a great idea!! :p

the story related above by chuck is WHY I put all the warnings in my posts!

Dont screw around with this..........its not a joke!
 
Thanks for the info Chuck!!!
Thats why I started the thread, I knew I'd get some good first hand knowledge here before gettin into a mess myself.
 
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