The most common (and cheapest) gas for Plasma Cutting and Gouging is Compressed Air. It works best with most metal plates up to 25mm thick. Air contains oxygen; consequently, when used for cutting, it leaves oxidized cut surfaces. Compressed air is used for plasma gouging on carbon steel as well as cutting of aluminium.

Oxygen can be used on carbon steel up to 60mm and produces fine cut surface quality; stainless steel and aluminium can be cut too, but with somewhat inferior cut quality.

When we want to cut metal sheets of up to 75mm in high current plasma machines, Nitrogen is usually used; it provides high quality non-oxidized cuts.

Stainless steel and aluminium are usually cut using mixtures of Argon and Hydrogen, especially when the material is thicker than 75mm. Cut surface quality is high. Plasma gouging on a wide variety of metals is also possible making use of Argon-Hydrogen.

Our photo: Manual Gas Consoles by Kjellberg (PGE-3800 for oxygen and Swirl Gases and PGE-2800 for Hydrogen, Nitrogen and Argon)