This weekend I decided to finish off the plasma table so that I can get cracking on the supercharger kits. The plasma has been pretty much finished for the past few weeks but has been on hold waiting for some smaller nozzles. The previous tests that I carried out resulted in a lot of dross and a larger then normal kerf which I put down to the 60amp nozzle that I had fitted. I ordered some 40 amp nozzles which arrived late last week.
With the new nozzles on hand I really needed to finalize the base so that I had a nice flat surface on which to cut. I made a trip to may favorite salvage yard - Adelaide rural salvage where I picked up the steel required to make both the base and table top at a knock down price. Of course it's pretty handy having a bus available to cart stuff like this home in
The base is a simple box type frame that the plasma cutter sits on. The working surface consists of flat bar standing on end bent into a gentle curve. The curve does two things, it allows the flat bar to more easily stand on its end and also ensures that cuts along the X plane do not completely coincide with the slat. This is important as the plasma arc protrudes from the bottom of the steel and will also cut anything else in it's path which would soon render the slats useless.
The slats themselves are pretty much a consumable, once one side is cut up you can flip them over and use the other side, but eventually they will need replacing.
With the table finished I made some test cuts unfortunately I omitted to take any photos, mind you I still have some more setting up to do to get things right but now that the nozzles are installed and I have a flat table to hold the workpieces properly it should simply be a case of dialing in the power and speed settings.
I'm pretty stoked with how it turned out, there are still some bits and bobs to take care of such as making some covers up for the drive belts and potentially making up a water tray to catch the sparks but for the most part it is finished. Now it's time to get some use out of it.
I've got a few projects lined up for it already. Of course I need to cut out the parts to make up some supercharger kits but there are also some other interesting things to do, some VW related and some not. By far the best thing is that I now have my welding bench back.