Munkul
Jack of some trades, Master of none
- Messages
- 7,366
- Location
- Cumbria
I've wanted a mountable plasma cutting track for quite some time now. Something that attaches via magnets/clamps, and gives a nice smooth, straight and parallel cut.
You can buy something like a Messer Stablecut:
http://www.messercutting.sk/products/oxyfuel-equipment/accessories/stablecut/
Angled more towards flame cutting. I priced them at work... horrendously expensive! But very clever, with a built in friction speed limiter etc.
Anyway, I was looking on ebay, and found some cheap linear rails. SBR12 with 4 ball race carriages.
Last night, I made some bolting plates out of some alloy flat I had lying around:
Bolted the tracks together and made a simple bracket to hold the plasma torch
And tried it out!
Total cost £51.60, and some odds/sods.
How does it work?
- It's relatively lightweight and manoeuvrable, which is what i wanted. The bulk of the weight is in the 12mm steel rails. It's very rigid, feels quality.
- It clamps easily to things, although a full length of flat bar along the rail with a bit of extra stickout would have been better for clamping. I have plans to sink some neodymium magnets into it for ferrous metals.
- it cuts straight as an arrow... well duh, you'd expect it should, with two linear rails! Careful marking, drilling and assembly of the rails will have effect on total straightness here. Over a metre length here, it was as straight as any straight thing I have for measuring.
- the torch bracket was hurriedly thrown together because I wanted to try it out. I can and will do better, something with adjustable torch height and angle.
- the cheap ball slides are cheap. They are slightly notchy and have a little bit of stiction... not what you want for cutting thicker metal slowly. I tried some light grease in the races, but it made things worse, not better. I will try to improve things with some dry teflon spray. A different type of linear bearing might help here - these SBR12's have 10 ball races in total, so quite a bit of stiction. Two rectangular rails would only have 8. Or maybe it just needs a higher quality slide.
Overall, I'm fairly pleased with my R&D. I'll perfect this 1m section, and if I can get truly happy with it, I'll build a 2m version as well, which was always the goal.
You can buy something like a Messer Stablecut:
http://www.messercutting.sk/products/oxyfuel-equipment/accessories/stablecut/
Angled more towards flame cutting. I priced them at work... horrendously expensive! But very clever, with a built in friction speed limiter etc.
Anyway, I was looking on ebay, and found some cheap linear rails. SBR12 with 4 ball race carriages.
Last night, I made some bolting plates out of some alloy flat I had lying around:
Bolted the tracks together and made a simple bracket to hold the plasma torch
And tried it out!
Total cost £51.60, and some odds/sods.
How does it work?
- It's relatively lightweight and manoeuvrable, which is what i wanted. The bulk of the weight is in the 12mm steel rails. It's very rigid, feels quality.
- It clamps easily to things, although a full length of flat bar along the rail with a bit of extra stickout would have been better for clamping. I have plans to sink some neodymium magnets into it for ferrous metals.
- it cuts straight as an arrow... well duh, you'd expect it should, with two linear rails! Careful marking, drilling and assembly of the rails will have effect on total straightness here. Over a metre length here, it was as straight as any straight thing I have for measuring.
- the torch bracket was hurriedly thrown together because I wanted to try it out. I can and will do better, something with adjustable torch height and angle.
- the cheap ball slides are cheap. They are slightly notchy and have a little bit of stiction... not what you want for cutting thicker metal slowly. I tried some light grease in the races, but it made things worse, not better. I will try to improve things with some dry teflon spray. A different type of linear bearing might help here - these SBR12's have 10 ball races in total, so quite a bit of stiction. Two rectangular rails would only have 8. Or maybe it just needs a higher quality slide.
Overall, I'm fairly pleased with my R&D. I'll perfect this 1m section, and if I can get truly happy with it, I'll build a 2m version as well, which was always the goal.