Summary for flattening aluminum panels Discussion
Flattening aluminum panels warped by laser cutting is the core issue here: Bob Macy says he is preparing 75 laser-cut 6061-T6 aluminum panels for powder coat and found many are warped, likely from stress relief after the many perforations were cut into 0.125-inch sheet. He asks whether others have experience flattening warped aluminum sheet parts. The excerpt provided does not include any replies or solutions, so there is no consensus method or named advice to report from the thread text shown. The only additional note is a forum reminder that some readers do not engage with anonymous posters, but it does not address the technical problem. Based on the excerpt alone, the discussion is simply a request for practical flattening experience before powder coating, with no answer captured in the source provided.
Q. Just started preparing 75 Laser cut panels for powder coat this morning and see that many of the panels are warped. I’m assuming this is because of the stresses in the material that are releasing as a result of the many, many perforations we had laser cut into these 6061 T6 aluminum (0.125″ thick)?
Curious if anyone has had any experience flattening aluminum sheet parts that are warped?
Bob Macy [fictitious]
Fabricator/Finisher – Culver City, CA
January 28, 2025
This is a meeting place for camaraderie & sharing, not a free consultancy. So some readers don’t engage with anonymous posters.