Can you cut carbide or high speed steel with lasers?

[capnfutile]

Googling and visiting mfr webistes hasn't given me any satisfactory answers. Can it be done?

(Need not be mounted on head of friggin' shark)

capn

[Fuji Kitakyusho]

Yes. The hardness of a steel is not a significant factor in cutting with laser or plasma processes. I could see water cutting being more difficult, or at least requiring a harder ceramic in the stream, and of course physical cutting is very difficult.

[DougC]

- - - Well.... water jets are really just for sheet-cutting, not doing 3-D machining. And carbide and HSS don't come in sheets, not commonly. So waterjets are probably not suitable.
- Lasers can do either sheet-cutting or 3-D work, depending on the setup--but many places doing complex stuff in metals prefer EDM (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&q=electro+discharge+machining&btnG=Search) because it avoids heating up the work.
~

[capnfutile]

Did some Googling about EDM - this looks like it might be more versatile to us than laser cutting.

Anyone ever use one?

Thanks crew.
capn