How to cut your brass perfectly every time
Whether you are creating decorative fittings for a new product, shiny new nameplates for your company offices, or new components for your latest electronic product, brass is often the material of choice. Brass is durable enough to withstand years of service both indoors and outdoors, and it is a low-maintenance material that doesn't require expensive care to prevent it from deteriorating. Using brass has a lot of advantages, but it isn't always an easy process to take your sheet of brass and turn it into a great-looking product.
Cut your brass with care
Difficulties with brass cutting have in the past made some companies reluctant to choose brass and led to them opting for alternative materials instead. One of the reasons that brass is so popular for many applications is that it is a great conductor of heat, yet it is this very property that makes brass cutting difficult. Today, most sheet metal is cut using laser technology which uses heat from a laser beam to cut through the metal sheet. For most metals, this is the perfect tool because computer control allows intricate designs to be reproduced in exact detail every time without the possibility of human error. For brass, laser cutting presents some challenges. If the operator is inexperienced or the company is not used to brass cutting, instead of the heat from the laser cutting through the brass, it can instead draw the heat away from the area being cut, resulting in either a poor-quality cut or even failure to cut the brass entirely. The only way to cut brass properly is to use a laser beam of a sufficiently high power and to find a company with plenty of brass cutting experience.
Look for the right company
Before committing to a particular laser cutting company, it is important that you spend some time researching the company to make sure they have the right equipment and the experience to produce the high-quality brass cutting you want. Ask them whether they regularly cut brass for other customers. Find out if they have any samples of their work that you can inspect. Concentrate on the edges of any samples. Is there a nice, straight edge, or does it look deformed where the laser beam wasn't hot enough? See if you can talk to any past customers to find out if they are happy with the way their brass was cut.
By taking the time to investigate the brass cutting company before you commit, you can be sure of cutting your brass perfectly every time.
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