Scaling down

[chevybythesea]

Hello, I've been plasma cutting for years, as a business. Used a Torchmate table, and for the last 5-6 years, a Arclight Dynamics table (all 5x10 with water under). Long story shortened, I am in the process of retiring, and want to scale down to a 4x4 or 4x6 table. Looking for recommendations on current new tables - what should I be looking at? 4x4 or 4x6 will fit in my little building in the back - bigger, and I need to rent another space - which I am trying to avoid. Any preferences?

[adbuch]

Have you thought about simply cutting down the size of your table? Maybe make it 5x5 or 5x4. Many have started with the smaller Plasmacam tables and expanded them from 2x2 to 4x4, 4x8, etc. It would seem to me that it would be easier to make it smaller than make it bigger. For smaller tables - I would recommend Plasmacam and Langmiur as several that I am familiar with if you are planning to buy new.

David

[tnbndr]

I think David is right. You should be able to cut your 5x10 down to 5x4 without a whole lot of issues. You know everything works and familiar with its quirks, why change? Unless you just want something new.

Good Luck

[BMCF]

How does your metal supplier get their material, Is it 4ft or 5ft wide sheets? I would base my decision on whether to go 4x4 or 5x5 on that. If they only carry 4 ft wide, then go that way. My supplier gets 5ft wide material. If I order a 4x8, they charge for a 5x10 and cut it down. Thats the reason I went with my 5x10..

[adbuch]

How does your metal supplier get their material, Is it 4ft or 5ft wide sheets? I would base my decision on whether to go 4x4 or 5x5 on that. If they only carry 4 ft wide, then go that way. My supplier gets 5ft wide material. If I order a 4x8, they charge for a 5x10 and cut it down. Thats the reason I went with my 5x10..

For a small hobby shop - the larger sheets can be hard to handle. I have my local suppliers cut in half to haul - so 4x8 -> qty. 2 4x4. If they were selling 5x10 sheets, then I would just have them cut it into qty. 2 of the 4x5 and the remaining 2x5. I can let the sheet hang off the end of the table and index thru if I need to cut something larger than 4x4 - which would be very rare for me.

If I had the 5x10 the OP has and wanted it smaller - I would go either way - 5x4 or 5x5 - depending on what will fit into my space.

The last time I ordered a cnc table from AvidCNC - the largest I could fit into the space was 4x2 - so that is what I got. The beauty of the AvidCNC is that they are very easily expandable in length - so easy to make the 4x2 into a 4x4, 4x8, 4x12, etc.

David

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[chevybythesea]

How does your metal supplier get their material, Is it 4ft or 5ft wide sheets? I would base my decision on whether to go 4x4 or 5x5 on that. If they only carry 4 ft wide, then go that way. My supplier gets 5ft wide material. If I order a 4x8, they charge for a 5x10 and cut it down. Thats the reason I went with my 5x10..

Prior to this, *I* was the metal supplier. Sold that business - but kept my contacts, so I'll be getting metal in the 4x8 size, just for ease of handling.

Adjusting the table down is a great idea - should have asked you all earlier. Unfortunately, I sold my 5x10 table.