Cool Thought - Holes to be drilled and punched

[Wesley Nichols]

........ they say necessity is the mother of new ideas..... I'm sure all you smart guys and gals have been doing this for years, but the other day I had some large pieces to cut out of 1/2" plate with various indexed holes and other mounting holes that needed to drilled or punched... because I needed them to be more precise than just a plasma cut hole.. So I drew it up in my drawing program and then I was like.... "Now how am I gonna get those holes transfered from my screen to that sheet" The first one, I stupidly snapped my torch to the center of that hole and got down there with a little pencil an tried to draw a little "X" where i thought it was... That wasn't close enough, and plus.... I hated it..

The next one I just snapped my torch to the center of the hole, cranked my torch down to 20 AMPS, and simply fired my torch for about a fraction of a second... on my plasmaCAM I just tapped my "TEST" button and It left a perfect little dimple not unlike a center punch mark right in the center of where I needed to drill that hole...

I marked all the holes with the torch, cut my piece out... punched 'em (or in your case you could drill them).... everything was within a couple thousandths...

Maybe someone can use this... Thanks for the site guys......

[plasmajoe]

Great tip if you do not have a center punch, scriber, plasma marker etc... Thanks for the info Wesley.

Plasma Joe

[kimdoc103]

When drawing the part in CAD I layout all the holes to a little smaller than the kerf. Our kerf is .125 so I make the hole diameter .1, This does the same thing, leaves a little center mark. just make sure your little holes don't have lead-ins!

[plain ol Bill]

Your kerf is .125?? Wow that is a wide one - what are you using oxy/acet? My Hyperthem 1250 cuts a pretty consistent .044 kerf using fine cuts.

[kimdoc103]

Your kerf is .125?? Wow that is a wide one - what are you using oxy/acet? My Hyperthem 1250 cuts a pretty consistent .044 kerf using fine cuts.

Yeah we are running an old Burney 5 lol....we are in the market for a new plasma and I have been looking at the Torchmate X. I think our plasma machine is from the early 80's