Is a Plasma Cutter really worth having in the home garage?

in one word........YEP

 

As far as your particular brand/model---the Eastwood i can't comment on whether to keep it.

But to answer the question in general, i would say yes, absolutely they are indispensable.

Unless you are not tired of the vibration, noise, frequent killing of sawblades and achy hands that using a sabre saw brings.........

 

I am a garage builder at best, and I have done things with the plasma that would have been much more challenging without. If it is in your budget, I think it is a great addition to the garage. I also got some new friends once they heard I had one.

 

In an aside, there is an old guy who's still kickin' around to town I grew up in, he ran a tractor repair business for decades. He's known far and wide for his ability to use a torch. When I first heard about it, I said "Well, lots of people can use a torch..." Then I was told by several guys who know what's what that he would cut a straight line, freehand, across an 8' sheet of 1/4" steel plate and they'd go pull a string along it and it would be as straight as the string.

 

Its kinda like air tools, you don't know how you lived without them after getting them. There's been a plasma cutter in my garage for about ten years now and I absolutely love the thing. Oh and you don't run out of oxy / actelene ever!

 

Hows that plasma work for heating up steering arms so you can bend them?

 

you dont need it! whats your adress? ill come pick it up this weekend.

 

Years ago I bought a HyperTherm with my son and still keep it in my shop. It does not get used often. I found it most useful while cutting a number of full sheets of sheet metal lengthwise, but I don't do that often. Nice clean cuts with very little cleanup needed. For most work I have other more convenient alternatives for cutting.

 

I worked in steel shops for many years (till about 2000) & got good with a torch. Last few years some owners would try to get me to use plasma. I could make a nice cut using a guide, but to visually follow a drawn line always did better with the torch, cause I could see exactly where I was cutting; with plasma you can't see arc cause nozzle is in the way. Is here a trick to cutting visually with a plasma?

 

One would not use a plasma CUTTER to heat metal. Reach for the torch, Harv! But I know you knew the answer.

 

Get the tip closer to the metal so the arc resides under the surface of the metal. This will prevent your mask to go full dark and your pupils to close.

 

I don't use mine that much but when I do it's invaluable. I hated taking my stuff to my welding guy to cut brackets etc. I couldn't justify spending big dollars so bought a chinese unit on Ebay. Better than I thought it could be. For the 250 it cost. I wouldn't be without it now!

 

The question with a tool like a plasma is:

a) What does it give you that you don't have with your existing tools?

b) What won't it do that your existing toolset will?

In what I first decided I *had* to use it on I wanted to cut a left, a right, and a center for a '64 Galaxie crossmember out of various sizes of rectangular tubing, it was profiled in various ways so I was cutting chunks out of three of four sides of each piece at various points.

There's no reasonable way I could have done this with a jigsaw (1/8 center and 3/16in ends). There's no way I could reasonably have done this with a Sawzall (contours too tight). There's no way I could have done this with a bandsaw (tight contours and not cut through both sides of the tubing.) I probably could have done it with some combination of holesaws, angle grinder, and die grinder, but it'd have been a miserable experience and difficult to produce repeatable work. Likewise it'd have taken an ace to do it with a cutting torch, and a fair amount of finishing.

I cut 2D templates out of 1/4in-thick bar stock for each face of the tube I was going to cut on, with the template providing the appropriate offset for the radius of the cutting tip. Cleaned up the templates and made sure they looked right. Then I cut along each face of the tubes with the appropriate template, and cleaned up the result with flappers in the angle grinder and the air die grinder. Then I stuffed the templates in the growing pile of jigs/templates/specialty tooling I've been accumulating for various purposes against future needs.

I've got access to a CNC Torchmate now (had I had that for the crossmembers I might have just cut all the sides from flat stock) and I'm trying to figure out if I can use it to the same effect for a set of frame rails I need to make for a subsequent project (2x5x.120 rectangular tube) or whether I'll be using the hand cutter on this.

 

Mine Chines made uses Esab pt 31 style torch They have an option for extended tip. The short tip gets the torch head too close so you can't see where it's cutting. The extended tip is about a half inch longer so head is up out of your way. I use extended tip exclusively and find I can actually see where I am cutting.

 

I love mine for the clean cuts and ease of use. Once I fired mine up and used it for the first time I wondered how I did any Kustom fab work without it. That has been about 7-8 years ago and I would be lost without it.

 

I have a larger thermal dynamic 1000 and love it. Can cut steel with no warpage and fast and clean AND will cut up to 1/2 steel
I love it and find it unreplaceable by a torch or die grinder A+++++++

 

If you're crafty you can build a cnc table for it at cut out any thing you want.

Some vid clips of me progressively building my cnc plasma table...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk5L0prby6I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUQg1QKdwzI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peGzswFp7cw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sw42H-y6_iQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwRt-gzxcJo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tU7LXEmfKbU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iReXxb1Nf7w

 

I love my miller 375 extreme one of the best tools I have to date

 

I have the same one and don't use it often, but when I do I love it.