I settled down tonight and wrote a short program for cutoff using the repeat command and it worked great. I used G91 to move down the bar and G90 to return to G54 true zero. I find the simulator on the machine unhelpful because I can’t see exactly what it’s doing, air machining is much more helpful.

What is unhelpful is swiping the end off my cutoff tool last night! I can see my error and I’ll correct it when the new tool arrives. Fortunately cutoff tools are fairly inexpensive so I’ll put this one down to experience and add the mangled remains to the pile!

Now I’m starting to understand more about how it works the manual is becoming more useful so I’ll refer to it more frequently in the future.

Thanks for your help. I agree Aluminium Warehouse is shocking.