I was going to do a short video on the cutting abilities of the Hypertherm Powermax 45XP but I needed to do some gouging today. Not to let an opportunity go past I decided to video this instead.

Mainly I wanted to cut up the frame of a table that I had no further use for but I wanted to try to preserve the materials to use on other projects.

As a secondary test I had the case of an old microwave oven that was spot welded together and I wanted to see if it was possible to successfully gouge such thin metal (under 0.6mm or about 0.02").

I have never gouged anything before this so I was quite interested to see how I would go. As with everything, it takes practice to do a good job. My early attempts were a bit haphazard but I did improve noticeably by the end. Still a long way to go before I would say I am mediocre but at least I have elevated my abilities above the hopeless category.

I was particularly interested to note that the Hypertherm did an excellent job on gouging out the spot welds on the microwave case. It could do whatever the operator could manage (and I fluked a couple of really beautiful gouges). In the hands of an expert I am sure those spot welds could be easily removed without damaging the underlying metal.

All-in-all the Hypertherm is a brilliant piece of kit.

I will investigate the cutting abilities in a later video.