Patent ID: 7649155

Claim:
A piercing method on a laser beam machine that comprises: a bed; a pallet which is disposed on the bed and holds a workpiece; a column which moves along an X axis; that is, a longitudinal axis of the bed; a saddle which is supported by the column and moves along a Y axis orthogonal to the X axis; and a machining head which is supported by the saddle and moves along a Z axis perpendicular to the plane formed by the X axis and Y axis, the laser beam machine being configured to automatically change laser machining tools on the machining head; the method comprising the steps of performing piercing alone on the workpiece using a special purpose tool for performing piercing, subsequently changing automatically from the special purpose tool to a different tool used for performing laser machining, and thereafter using the different tool to perform laser machining on the workpiece based on nesting data.