How do I cut this stuff??

A familiar question to me now is; How do I cut steel?

(Other versions of this question include; How can I cut stainless steel? How can I cut through copper? How can I cut stuff from thick aluminum? etc.)

The obvious answer is; Superman. But when he's not available the next best thing is waterjet cutting (or laser cutting) depending on the thickness of the metal that you want to process.

Typically stainless steel that is over 3/4" thick should be cut using abrasive waterjet. But anything less than that is fair game for laser. Unless you really do want to use waterjet cutting, you can go that route too. Waterjet cuts materials as thin as .001" and as thick as 12" which is pretty amazing in itself.

Now I know what you're thinking, what if I'm not cutting stainless steel? What if I'm trying to cut thick aluminum, or copper, or a cheese pizza?? Well... in that case, aluminum can be cut using waterjet (not so much the choice project for laser, but it could be I guess) and for copper, that is straight up an abrasive waterjet cutting job. And cheese pizza? You could opt for water-only cutting, as this video demonstrates... But that's besides the point.

To see a chart demonstrating the difference between waterjet and laser cutting, you can visit Fedtech's website and compare the two.

Either way... good luck with that! At least you know what you're doing now :)