ArlyA
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Oh ya, the wheels mounted in the picture through me off.
Metal Thickness?
- Thread starter BxB301
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Vigo327
Platinum Member
Those are some nice looking cuts on all those plates.. how are you cutting?
Most straight cuts were done with a grinder (can get straighter, and a cleaner cut)
The curves, mostly inside corners, were first cut on my CNC router into some 1/4" material, then the hand-held plasma cutter follows it as a jig or stencil.
Works...decently. I have to come back and clean off up the cuts with the grinder and a sanding disc, but it works.
This also worked as a manual 'nesting' method, to make sure I could get everything I needed out of one metal sheet.
It should also be noted the welding/fab desk caught fire numerous times.
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Vigo327
Platinum Member
Well, im glad my hunch that those curves weren’t cut ‘freehand’ was correct so i dont have to nurse a sense of inferiority.. Sounds like your process is pretty good considering what you’re working with. I wonder if you can put a tiny bearing on a plasma cutter tip the way you can put a bearing on a router to follow an edge? Might make it smoother, but conductivity of the bearing is probably an issue.. lol.
As far catching the fab station on fire, it gets what it gets! Thats the beauty of owning/building all your stuff vs borrowing, renting, or paying through the nose for new.. You dont HAVE to care any more than you want to.
As far catching the fab station on fire, it gets what it gets! Thats the beauty of owning/building all your stuff vs borrowing, renting, or paying through the nose for new.. You dont HAVE to care any more than you want to.
Well, im glad my hunch that those curves weren’t cut ‘freehand’ was correct so i dont have to nurse a sense of inferiority.. Sounds like your process is pretty good considering what you’re working with. I wonder if you can put a tiny bearing on a plasma cutter tip the way you can put a bearing on a router to follow an edge? Might make it smoother, but conductivity of the bearing is probably an issue.. lol.
As far catching the fab station on fire, it gets what it gets! Thats the beauty of owning/building all your stuff vs borrowing, renting, or paying through the nose for new.. You dont HAVE to care any more than you want to.
I didnt want it to look home-made, as much as possible. Because of this I went with many rounds and special cuts - which granted took much longer, but hopefully gives me a nicer end result.
You can do it with a grinder, its just not fun a will probably take a cutting disk for every cut - but they arent $0.99 anymore.
I rounded the ends of the tubing with the grinder and a template.
I cut one side of seat base out with the grinder before saying F this and fired up the plasma.
You probably could use a bearing - but if you go slightly too fast once, it throws slag out the top instead of the bottom, buggering up the tip and surface. This would be a problem with a guide, where freeish hand, you just plow through it. (photo example attached)
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MTGreen
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Well, im glad my hunch that those curves weren’t cut ‘freehand’ was correct so i dont have to nurse a sense of inferiority.. Sounds like your process is pretty good considering what you’re working with. I wonder if you can put a tiny bearing on a plasma cutter tip the way you can put a bearing on a router to follow an edge? Might make it smoother, but conductivity of the bearing is probably an issue.. lol.
As far catching the fab station on fire, it gets what it gets! Thats the beauty of owning/building all your stuff vs borrowing, renting, or paying through the nose for new.. You dont HAVE to care any more than you want to.
Maybe a shielded ceramic bearing?
Vigo327
Platinum Member
i wonder? I have a chinesium cut50 i got for $136 off amazon. It’s been fine for me but i probably havent even made 10 ft of cuts with it so i havent even gotten comfortable let alone experimented with any ‘tricks’. Need more ‘seat time’.
This is the Vevor Cut-50
It doesnt suck exactly, but my buddy has a Miller 625 Plasma Cutter (I think)
Its the smallest model that is both 110 and 220 - I used it twice; from what I remember it cut beautifully.
Right after borrowing it, I was making nice straight cuts free-hand and felt as though I was an expert at it after 5 minutes.
The cut50, I feel I need more practice and need to 'learn' more.
I really just think its a week tool.
It'll do 1/4" at full power and exceeding the recommended PSI, I doubt it will do anything thicker with results you'll care to use.
1/8" however, its a knife through butter.
...also, the tips wear out quickly.
Vigo327
Platinum Member
One advantage i have in running my chinese welder and plasma cutter is that i only run them on 240v. I think a lot of disappointment on the internet with chinese 'power electronics' of various kinds not living up to their ratings etc is coming from using a 'dual voltage' machine on 120. I don't recall if i have cut 1/4" yet but i have definitely cut some things that were close and im currently blaming the 'not great' cut finish on my shaky hand technique and uneven travel speed.. But if i get better and it still sucks im gonna start blaming the machine! lol
MTGreen
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That's awesome, congrats on the progress!
I understand it's not finished yet, but it looks like some really substantial weight needs to be added to make it effective as a digger as your skids appear to be picking up and walking quite a bit
Thank you for the congratulations, its nice to see some positivity here on my project.
Here is some of what I learned 2.3 minutes after firing the engine up for the first time;
Non-selfpropelled/tracked machines absolutely suck to move. Anybody that owns one and say they are just "slow" is seriously understating it.
I found it quicker to just curl the bucket to move/drag myself forward a few inches at a time, than to manipulate the boom/stick to achieve the same motion.
- I see what you mean, but no, those were intentional/frustration drag marks.
(Also, I learned I'm pretty impatient)
MTGreen
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Not sure what your plans are for finished mobility, but several ideas occur to me about putting easily removable swiveling wheels on your skids or retractable wheels with over center levers to lower off the center section of your machine. It also occurs to me to use one of those motorized trailer movers to lever one end up and use the motor to move it like the one below:
Just some thoughts.
Of course you could always put a trailer hitch on the back end, add some wheels, make the skids telescoping with pins, and use it like a towable backhoe. The truck you hook it to could also provide quite a bit of weight and stability as well
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ptsg
Super Member
That's great! Looks awesome!
I'm so glad you decided to ignore them and did your thing anyway. There's nothing but joy to use something you build yourself, specially after you had so many people saying "it can't be done, it's not worth it, bla bla bla".
Do you think you'll need some spikes or spuds on the front legs to keep it from pushing forward?
I think is needs a little bit of a redesign.
I made a video on the build and problems if anyone cares to see it
LD1
Epic Contributor
I think too many GPM for the motor size....and just in general. Too jerky. And bogging and almost stalling the motor.
Without digging back through the thread, what pump did you use and whats the HP
Without digging back through the thread, what pump did you use and whats the HP