I think this is a brilliant idea. “Snub” made a ball turning tool and used a 4-jaw chuck as the base. He says it works perfectly and leaves an almost perfect finish. I don’t doubt him because of the weight and rigidity of the chuck and the large bearing he used as a pivot. His design also looks like it is quick and easy to make. Notice that he didn’t make a holder for the carbide insert. Instead took an existing holder and drilled it so he could bolt it to a piece of steel.
Unfortunately, you can’t use Snub’s idea if you have a small lathe. It would definitely be too tall for a 7x mini-lathe, and I don’t think it will work on my 8×12 even if I use a shorter 3-jaw chuck and somehow directly mount it on the ways.
I think you’ll find this short video interesting if you’ve never seen a plasma cutter in operation. I found it while helping a friend look for a plasma cutter he can afford. Of course, now I want one, which is not surprising considering my new son-in-law is a welder and we’d both like to have a well-equipped metal fabrication shop. I’m also currently taking a MIG welding class and I’m obviously interested in machining and metalworking. But I’m not sure if I can afford one right now. My wife probably thinks a LCD TV would be a better use of our money and so would a new snow blower. Hell is also freezing over soon and I’m going to have to buy my brother a wedding present.
Here are the machines I’ve researched so far and what I think of them.
Harbor Freight 240v plasma cutter with digital display
This unit is frequently on sale for $600. It gets good reviews but some say it eats up consumables (cups, rings, tips, electrodes) pretty quickly and they’re expensive to buy. It also runs on 220/240-volts and I’d prefer to get a dual-voltage machine that can also run on 110-volts. It also has a fairly short (10-foot) hose and ground cable. It comes with a 1-year warranty and you can also get an inexpensive 2-year extended warranty for it, which would eliminate most concerns about its durability. Harbor Freight has a very good reputation for replacing products that break under warranty.
Hobart “Airforce” plasma cutters
Plasma cutters need compressed air to operate. Hobart sells a line of plasma cutters with built-in air compressors, which I think is a really nice feature. The 250ci, which runs on 115-volts, sells for about $800 and their dual-voltage (115/230v) model 500ci goes for about $1300. The 115-volt machine can cut up to 1/4-inch thick steel. That’s probably more than enough for most home shops, but I’d like to have the dual-voltage machine’s ability to cut steel up to 5/8-inch thick. Unfortunately, the Hobart 500ci is way out of my price range.
Hobart is a trusted name in welding. So getting service, parts and supplies is not going to be a problem. Their plasma cutters come with a 1-year warranty but I’m a little concerned about the cost of getting one of these machines fixed if it breaks after the warranty expires.
I’d like to consider buying a new Miller, Lincoln or ESAB cutter but they’re even further out of my price range. I often buy used equipment and I wouldn’t hesitate to buy a good used plasma cutter if I knew that they were generally reliable and durable. But I don’t know if they are. I don’t want to buy a used machine without a warranty and then have it stop working a few months later and find out it will cost me hundreds to get it fixed.
Plasma cutters manufactured by the Wenzhou Chiry company in China
The Cut 50 that you see in the video was made by Chiry. Their plasma cutters are imported and sold under various names like Simadre, Longevity, Parker, Ramsond and many others. They make two machines I’m interested in. One is a dual-voltage (110/220v) plasma cutter that you can buy for as little as $370 (and maybe less) with free shipping on eBay. They also have a dual-voltage 3-in-1 machine that is a plasma cutter, TIG welder and arc welder for $580 on eBay with free shipping and a free foot pedal control. The other companies charge more, although not that much, but they often have better service and support and longer warranties.
I’ve read a lot of reviews and they’re pretty good, and many of them are very good. But there seems to be a significant number of buyers who have received machines that were dead on arrival. I find that a bit worrisome. Also, if the machine breaks while under warranty you’re going to have to ship it back to the seller and hope that they’re still in business and will honor their promises. By the way, most sellers offer a 1-year warranty and some offer a 3- or 5-year warranty.
There’s definitely some risk involved in buying one of these machines, especially if you buy one on eBay. Even so, I’ve been very tempted the last few days to just roll the dice and order one, which is very unusual for me.
Here are some more reasons why I’m considering one of these machines:
I’d really like to have a dual-voltage machine and I can’t afford the one Hobart sells. One reason is that I don’t have a 220-volt outlet in my garage yet, although that will probably change soon. I’d also like to be able to take it and use it at a friend or relative’s house. These plasma cutters are small and light (~20 pounds) and a 110-volt 20-amp outlet will provide enough power to cut most things.The Chiry machines will automatically adjust themselves to the voltage they’re plugged into, just like the Hobart will. They don’t come with a power plug installed because they leave it up to you to install one for either a 110 or 220v outlet. I’d put a 220v plug on it and then make up an adapter so it can be plugged into a 110v outlet. That’s how I think Hobart does it.
The 3-in-1 machine doesn’t cost much more than just the plasma cutter. I don’t care that it can arc weld, but I’d love to be able to do TIG welding. One advantage of TIG is that it can weld more kinds of metals than the other welding processes. However, the less expensive Chiry 3-in-1 machines can not weld aluminum because they’re DC only machines, not AC/DC. Which I think is a good reason to get a better TIG welder instead. TIG can also create very small, clean and neat looking welds. It also doesn’t produce any sparks, spatter, slag, smoke or fumes. It’s also slower, requires more skill and you’ll also have to buy or rent a tank because it uses argon gas.
We obviously don’t have a lot of experience with plasma cutters. So my friend and I would appreciate it if you would leave a comment if you have some advice or other suggestions for us.
Addendum
I’ve learned that there are two ways to start a plasma flame. The least expensive torches use “high-frequency” or “contact” start that can interfere with computer or electrical equipment (CNC!). They require you to touch the torch to bare metal to start the plasma flame. More expensive torches usually use a pilot arc to start the flame, which will allow you to begin cutting before you come into contact with the metal.
Everlast sells a pilot arc plasma cutter (SuperCut 50P) for $650 (currently on sale $550) and Longevity sells a similar unit (ForceCut LP-50D) for $550. They both come with free shipping and a five-year warranty.
This is the “fortuitous” keyboard and mouse podium I made for my CNC mini-mill. The previous owner kept the keyboard and monitor on top of the cabinet and used a “thumb” mouse that dangled down on a cord. They obviously weren’t easy to use and I wanted some kind of table or stand to put them on. But I didn’t want to invest a lot of time or money in one because it was probably going to be temporary, until I could build a new workbench for the mill and an enclosure that can handle coolant.
I considered making one from wood but I’m glad I built one using a spare tire and some pipe fittings instead. It may seem a little “red neck,” but it is very strong, very stable and easy to move. It was also quick and easy to build. A wooden stand would have probably been wobbly on my somewhat uneven concrete floor. I would have also built it too low, and I would’ve had to use it that way or cobble together some kind of riser. By using pipe, I simply had to replace one section with a longer one to increase its height to where I wanted it.
If you’re wondering, the top is made from part of an old desk and it’s offset a couple of inches from the center toward the edge of the tire. For strength I supported it with two pipe flanges in a “Y” configuration.
The definition of fortuitous is “happening by a lucky chance,” which describes this podium. I stopped to look at pipe fittings at Lowe’s and found they had flanges on clearance for 99 cents. If they hadn’t been I probably would have switched to wood construction, because I needed three of them and there’s no way I would have paid the normal price of $12 each. I did have to buy some reducing bushings for them, but in all, I only spent about $30 or so for the pipe parts.
A friend was visiting my workshop at about the same time. I mentioned I was looking for a free tire rim and was going to put a want ad on Craigslist. A couple of days later he dropped off a spare tire and rim from a Triumph TR-6. A few days later I accidentally stumbled across a nice Microsoft wireless keyboard and mouse on sale at Walmart.com. I got them for $19, which including tax and shipping. But my luck didn’t end there. A week or two later I found a bigger and better LCD monitor at a garage sale for $10 that fit an articulating wall mount I found at another garage sale for $5!
I’ve discovered that I could use another small table on the right side of the mill for my tooling and parts. So the new bench I’m going to build for the mill is probably going to be “U” shaped.
Yes, I know. I haven’t added much new material to MachinistBlog.com lately. If it weren’t for Mike and Nate this web site would be as stale as 3-week old bread. The reason is that I’ve had a strong itch to spend as much time as I can in my workshop before I get busy with getting our yard, gardens and house ready for winter. My list of chores includes spending at least 20 hours picking up our leaves. I have an arsenal of gas and electric powered tools to help, but even so I’m often too tired or too cold when I finish for the night to machine metal.
It has nothing to do with metalworking but I want to tell you about my next-door neighbor who thinks it’s OK for her to blow her leaves into our yard. It’s not by accident. She’ll stand there and patiently use her leaf blower to push her leaves through a chain-link fence into my backyard. I’m not sure why, but apparently she must think that the leaves that fall from my trees into her yard should be my problem not hers, and so should most of the leaves from her trees, along with anybody else’s leaves that blow into her yard.
She must not have noticed, or cares, that she is upwind of me and I get many more leaves from her trees than she gets from mine. The only leaves she got from my trees were the ones that fell on windless days from branches that hung over her yard. And now she doesn’t even get those, because she had my tree limbs, and all the other neighbor’s, cut off at her property line.
I can be very assertive but I don’t think it is smart to feud with a neighbor. So I quietly put up with her for years. But, a few years ago she was being particularly brazen about it so I called the police. I was then surprised to find out there is no law against blowing your leaves into somebody else’s yard!
The police officer did change her behavior a little. Instead of blowing her leaves directly into my yard she started leaving them in the front yard near the property line, where there is no fence, so the wind would do her dirty work for her. And last year her new husband tried something different. He blew the leaves out into rush hour traffic so the breeze from the cars would carry them down the road. Most of them ended up in my yard, but some of the other neighbors got a chance to share some of the joy also.
Getting back to my workshop, I haven’t been doing much machining even though I’ve been spending a lot of time in it. Instead, I’ve been concentrating on making more room in my shop by reorganizing it and ruthlessly getting rid of stuff that I don’t need or have no room for.
I don’t want to give anyone the impression that you need a lot of space to have a home machine shop. You don’t, and for a long time mine only took up an 8×10-foot space in the back of our single-car garage. But I’ve recently added a CNC mini-mill (used) that came in a large wooden enclosure, another lathe (a used 8×12 that I got a good deal on), and a 4×6 horizontal bandsaw (also used). In addition, I already had a full-size table saw, a bandsaw, a large combination sander, bicycles, an outboard motor and some assorted yard tools. It was crowded, although not as bad as you may think because most of my larger tools are mounted on wheels so I can store them out of the way when I’m not using them.
I do have one machining project I’m actively working on. It’s HMEM’s EZ Build engine. I invited a friend to come over and learn how to machine metal and I though it would be a good project for him to work on. I also thought I should build one myself first. So I put Jan Ridders’ ‘Simpler’ Stirling engine on hold again to do that.
There’s another reason why I haven’t been working on this web site much lately. I’ve been taking a 3-hour MIG welding class on Monday nights. You’ll be hearing more about that later.
I think this is a brilliant idea. “Snub” made a ball turning tool and used a 4-jaw chuck as the base. He says it works perfectly and leaves an almost perfect finish. I don’t doubt him because of the weight and rigidity of the chuck and the large bearing he used as a pivot. His design also looks like it is quick and easy to make. Notice that he didn’t make a holder for the carbide insert. Instead took an existing holder and drilled it so he could bolt it to a piece of steel.
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