new plasma cutter

[Nevadasmith]

Hi, I am new here and have a few questions about plasma cutters. I am a General Contractor building a log home and would like to buy a plasma cutter on ebay. I have seen 50a cutters for around 400.00. I will be cutting around 1/8 steel for some of the art projects I want to do, such as railing scenes and light covers. I was wondering if this would do the job, I will need it to be a nice clean cut, wondering about the tips if they come in different sizes, what I would need for tip size and if I can run this off my regular 5 gal compressor. I think it needs between 40-70psi. Thanks for the forum and the help in advance.

[Washington Apple]

Personally I would make sure you get a respected brand name cutter too, ebay has allot of cheap Chinese units that most likely wont last long in a production environment, not to mention availability of consumables might be problematic. I have a Thermal Dynamics cutter, but there are several good brands to choose from like Hypertherm , Esab, Lincoln, Miller, and others.
50 amps is more than enough for 1/8" plate. Mine is a 40 amp and it will cut 1/8" without breaking a sweat. So you can go a little smaller if you need to, but I would avoid the 110 Volt models and stay with 220 Volt myself.

[Nevadasmith]

Hi and thanks for the replies. I ended up buying a GIANTTECH PLASMA CUTTER Cut40D 40 Amp . I have seen these on ebay for about 3 years and have heard good things. I was also worried about buying one and then having them go out of business making it hard to buy tips or consumables. I would love to have a miller or name brand cutter, but this will do fine for me now. I am not sure what tips to buy to get a detailed/clean cut I guess I should talk with the seller. I will also buy another compressor since the 5 gallon compressor I have is for my nail gun. It says it needs an operating air pressure of 70 psi @ 4 cfm. Any suggestions on the size I should get to run the cutter.
I was also wondering how to transfer my paper pattern to the flat sheet metal. I use to be a glass blower before becoming a general contractor and use to do patterns a lot, but never transfered them to metal. I am glad to have this website to help me get started and pretty cool posts to read and people to talk to . Thanks, Scott.

[PlasmaDoodler]

Hi, if you've been reading this forum you will see most are fortunate to have cnc tables which produce the best quality cuts. I have done some hand cutting and have either drawn free-hand on the metal with white chalk or made a stencil with a "Bristol Board" (more time consuming but infinitely cheaper). However, unless you have the hands of a surgeon, the slightest wrong movement translates into a very wobbly edge and even with a decent cut there is lots of grinding. The urge to buy a cnc table is VERY strong but i am going to try one more thing- i think an old-style overhead projector would be useful. I will make my designs on computer then print out a transparency. This i will take out to my garage to project onto steel. If i stick to things that aren't too complicated and especially don't need straight lines or perfect circles i should be alright. Good-luck and if you find another method let us know.