Good tips, I will pin this to the top. Cheers

Very good tips. Thanks a lot!! 👍👍👍👏👏👏

Ian Cook 👨‍🍳 I

wow cheers Ian thats great reading there. Helped a lot thanks.

Wot! Ya say in plasma don't care?

Far out Tanner. I took Ag in 9th grade just to learn to weld in the early 80's. The summer before school started, I got hired on at a local steel fab outfit making stuff for Panhandle Eastern as a welders helper working with some top notch stick welders for a whopping $2 an hour. Needless to say, I didn't need Ag anymore but was stuck in the class. Ag teacher would jokingly accuse me of having my co worker weld my coupons(any way I think he was joking). I built a go cart "after hours"at work hidden from the owner (boss) of the company(looking back I still can't believe he let me close shop by myself). He strait up busted me one day when he found my frame I welded. He told me I better rethink my steering, cause when U turn steering wheel right, cart steers left , and vice versa. Then he got serious and said the material I was using was property of Panhandle Eastern and said they might take a dim view of me using their material ( I was about shitting at this point cause I knew I was about to be fired for the first time ever), then he told me he would really appreciate it if I would wire brush the painted serial numbers off the 1 inch pipe used to construct the frame. Later, he even sold me a used 8 horse motor for 10 bucks. God rest his soul, one of the coolest dudes I ever worked for(and smartest). I learned some real life skills there, meanwhile, I was stuck in ag class, and we spent more time going to local farms "cutting hogs" than we ever did welding. That shit sucked, but had some laughs. Any way sorry for the long bore-a-thon, but your comment kinda hit me just how fast time/life goes by. Seems almost like last week to me, that I was in Ag class. Still have my blue and gold jacket even tho it don't even come close to fitting anymore. Best of luck Tanner, and remember safety third...I have a feeling you are gonna be a fabricator in no time.

As a newbie to plasma it beats oxy hands down. And no gas bottles either. If I did not have to heat things on occasion I would get rid of the oxy bottles totally. The only thing I gas weld now is old rusty exhausts. And that about once a year.

I used to watch guys on KZfaq and tv plasma cutting and think "that looks great" then I got one. I tried it out, played around with a few things, and though, this is no better than an oxy but takes longer to set up! But once you dial it in, it's so much better. You can get grinder quality cuts and triple the speed. I was cutting up old plough discs to make a 4 strand barbed wire spinner and it took me 10 minutes to mark and cut one with the oxy, I said "fuck this" and set up the plasma (I had forgotten about it) and cut the next 3 in 10 minutes.

One of the BEST things regarding a Plasma cutters unlike Oxy acetylene they require no cylinders which are RENTALS and the cost of long term rental is cripplling unless you have many jobs that require oxy cutting, most shops have a compressor.

@MichaelKingsfordGray building welding cart and benches whilst simultaneously teaching myself welding because i'm tired of stuff sitting on the floor or having to work on the floor of my garage. Slack shaming indeed. :) I bought a plasma cutter recently after running into things that stopped me from progressing on ideas (oh sh-- I could do that but.. I don't have X tool), plasma cutter actually solves quite a few tooling issues but it has a few requirements of it's own. An inline dryer and water/oil separator positioned at the cutter unit for one. Water trap on it's own is not enough, you run the risk of ruining the gun assembly (300 dollars for a new plasma gun) if you don't take proper precautions.