Metal fabricators that operate laser-cutting machines know that smooth, clean base-material surfaces are key ingredients to efficient, quality cutting. One service center that recently learned this, and is passing it on to its metal-fabricator customers, is Layhill Processing, Loudon, TN. Warren 'Chip' Gerber, president of Layhill Processing, recently set up a new toll-processing service to provide SCS (Smooth Clean Surface) steel to distributors and users in the southeast United States. The SCS process was invented and patented by The Material Works, Ltd., a toll processor in Red Bud, IL, offering slitting, blanking, cut-to-length and stretching services, as well as providing SCS material. The SCS process takes hot-rolled black steel and gives it a clean, rust-inhibitive cold-rolled surface ready for fabrication, painting or intermediary processing. "I don't think you'll find another sheet-steel product that's so optimized for laser cutting and so reasonably priced," says Gerber.
展开▼
