Cutting Surfaces for Automated Cutting Tables

Vacuum tables used on automated cutting systems all have some sort of sacrificial cutting surface fitted to the table. The type of surface depends on the tools used on the table. Normally, a rotary blade runs on a hard plastic while a reciprocating blade or powered rotary blade runs on a softer surface like porous felt.  Laser cutters use a perforated steel or mesh cutting surface. Ultrasonic tables use a harder surface, usually steel, glass or ceramic.

Aeronaut works hard to fit the longest-lasting and highest performance cutting surfaces to tables. We've worked hard to design vacuum decking systems which are stable and rigid and which allow the cutting surface to stay securely in place over wide changes in temperature.

It's impossible to give any reliable indication of how long a cutting surface will last because of the unknowns… how many shifts are run a day, how much care does the operator take over tool pressures and fitting support shoulders to rotary blades to minimise excess cut depth, and how detailed are patterns. That said, most customers can expect 8-10 years from a plastic cutting surface and some have managed more than twice that working life.

Aeronaut's unique panel joining system means that cutting surfaces can be easily shipped, easily installed and at the end of a long working life, easily removed and recycled.

Most Aeronaut cutting surfaces are polypropylene or occasionally polyethylene, chosen to give the longest life based on what is being cut. Flat sheet material is accurately profiled and then drilled to suit the spacing of the aluminium vacuum decking. Sheets are tiled over the entire table surface and interlock to form a flat, stable surface.

Other cutting surface materials are used on vacuum tables by other manufacturers, but not by Aeronaut. Some are so much more expensive and have such short working lives compared with the materials used by Aeronaut that on an average cutting table, the cost of the cutting surface replacement over 3-4 years can be more than the cost of the entire Aeronaut cutting system.

Porous plastic is probably the most expensive and short-lived cutting surface available and only used on cutting tables where the vacuum decking is something like honeycomb aluminium rather than a more suitable material like Aeronaut's custom decking extrusion. Roll polycarbonate is sometimes used on narrow cutting tables but it's difficult to join and very expensive to ship any distance because the roll is 1.6 to 2 metres in diameter so what you're shipping is mainly expensive  air.