Lo Buck Plasma guide Again

[ISKI]

Time to resurrect the Lo-Buck-Plasma guide. I need to make some more curved parts so its time to remake the plasma cutter guide. My last one was too big, so I’m making a new one. This one is made from some scrap steel. It still needs some parts, but after 4 hours of cutting and welding it is getting close. The guide will sit on top of my portable welding table.

[KHK]

Looks great, nice and heavy duty!!

[gilly]

Thanks for the idea.How long and wide is this one?Looks like it was fun to make as it will be to use.

[samsberr]

Nice job...Looks like it will be purty darn accurate...

[ISKI]

This one is 3'-6" x 3'-2". The side rails are made from an old bed frame, and can be changed to be at least 7'. The base is a surplus 19" rack rated for 100G 10ms shock pulse so it is rather solid. As of today it is almost operational again. The front and rear have a piece of bed frame that runs up and down a slotted rail. This allows different work thickness 0 to 2 inches thick. I use two or three additional bed rails clamped to the front and rear height adjusters to clamp the work to. Once the plasma cutter is adjusted just above the work I clamp the template down either with rare earth magnets, a bolt and hole, or clamps. Now I trace the pattern. The only draw back is that I have to regulate the speed. I typically put a thumb on one of the skateboard bearings to regulate the speed. With practice this used to work very well and should again. I would like to have rubber wheels or a geared track with some sort of speed governor to improve on the basic unit. The reason I made it is that I can't keep the torch perfectly true in the X-Y-Z without it. Using this I can trace almost any pattern. Here a few more shots of today's progress:

[gilly]

I got ta get me one of these.I already have most of the bed rails.I wonder if inline skate wheels would be as good as the bearings,or would they be to big?

[atcig]

That is very nice

[Charley Davidson]

Looks like I'm missing something? Where is the pattern follower? Where does the pattern go?

[ISKI]

I never added the trace pointer so its not actually a pantograph. What I do is cut templates out of 1/4 inch waferboard. I adjust the template size to make up for half of the width of the cutter tip. In solidworks, I draw up the template 1:1, then I tell the program to add an offset shape to remove the tip offset width. I make this slightly smaller so I can grind off any kerf angle depending on material thickness. I print this, then rubber cement it to the waferboard. I cut the shape on my scroll saw and sand smooth. Now I clamp the template down and trace it. This is simple and works rather well. I need to add a foot pedal so that I can use both hands to regulate the motion. The major benefit is that the torch does not tilt, also I can save each template and make more identical parts.

I bet the bigger wheels would be fine if you can line them up to your track. I think that the bearings in these wheels are the same as what I used. I went to sports authority and purchased a pack of skateboard bearings for around $11.00. After this I looked around the garage for metal that was not being used. I also think that having bearings on both sides of say the left rail and a single bearing on the right rail may be easier to get everything lined up. I have found that if two bearings on the one side touch then only one on the other side needs to be tight since I am tracing patterns and not actually making a pantograph. This would look different each time I make one depending upon what scrap metal I have on hand

[Charley Davidson]

So does your pattern attach to the metal and your torch ride against the pattern? Thinking about modifying mine to have bearing/track cross slide instead of the hinged swing movement then mount a stylus above the torch and mount my patterns above.