I was one of the fortunate ones here on Pirate back in July that was able to take advantage of the Torchmate deal. After talking with Joe since back in April, I was pretty much ready to pull the trigger but had to exhaust several different options as to how to go about paying for such a machine. I chose to go with the gantry kit and build my own table which worked out pretty well considering that the only materials I actually purchased for the table were the leveling feet and the slat material. Everything else was here in my scrap pile, I just had to be a little creative and hold the top rail dimensions from the Torchmate drawings.

on to the pictures
The first picture is the legs and x axis rails. I chose to use the wide flange beams that I had. They are W-12 x 19. They are flipped upside down for welding the legs on and welding on the leveling foot mounting plates.

Here is a close up of the leveling foot mounts.
Second picture is of my first plan for the bracing. I was being lazy that day and didn't feel like driving to pick up the square tubing material I ultimately ended up using. I just used the 2x2x1/4" angle and it just didn't get as rigid as I wanted it to be. I could have braced the hell out of it with the angle and made it solid. But I just felt like it was going to be too many welded joints and I'd rather just use the tubing which you will see in a later picture.

Here is how I mounted the gear rack and the support slats. I didn't really plan it this way but it worked out that the slat supports were about the same dimension from the low side top beam flange as they were from the bottom of the high side beam flange.

Awesome :smokin:

Shot of the cable carrier on the back of the high side and a view of the table from the opposite end of the shop. I don't usually let it get that cluttered but I think I had about 4 other projects going on at the time and was trying to keep everything going all at once.

Big foot print in your shop or is there a lot more space? ?

Shot of the table at about 75% completed. The top CR rails have been mounted, the lower framing reworked, and the slat supports laid in place.

I didn't want to have the cutter sitting on the floor. It seemed that I had a bit of extra length in the rails so rather than just cut them off at what would be the zero point on the x axis, I left a bit of extra and built a small shelf where the plasma cutter was bolted down.

All the air and power is run over head and dropped in from the ceiling right above the plasma cutter. I'll probably drop another duplex receptacle for the electronic components and the laptop but I'm going to get a computer cabinet built first and arrange the 110 wiring around that.

Big foot print in your shop or is there a lot more space? ?

No there isn't a ton of space. I knew that it was going to really jam things up but I also knew that I won't be in this shop forever and a 4x4 would not suffice for very long. My plan is to built an over head gantry crane that will span 2 bays wide (20') and go back to the center of the shop. I am pretty sure I will be able to reach the center of the table with the crane and if I can't then I have plenty of room to slide the table closer to the O.H. door. A lot of what I do is cuts out of scrap and drops but I wanted the ability to put a 4x8 on there if I wanted too.

This is a couple pics of the first cuts I made with it. The third pic is of a table top skin for my aluminum table top. The aluminum top is anodized and doesn't ground worth a crap. I wanted to put a piece on top anyway, so I used the plate marker to engrave a square up grid on 10" centers and also laid out a hole pattern so that I can drill and tap the table top through the skin and clamp things down out in the middle of the table.

Couple other parts I cut for some other projects.

So far this thing has been the most awesome and most frustrating piece of machinery I have ever had the pleasure to work on. I have found that everything that has frustrated me was from my own lack of experience. Pretty much everything I have run into thus far in terms of the machine operation is in the instructions some where. I would highly recommend to anyone building one of these to make yourself notes as to which instructions you saw what as you read through them. Teh information is all there but it is split up into separate instructions for each component. It would be nice if they were all condensed into one book but with the number of different options that Torchmate offers for their tables I can easily see why this is not the case. All in all it seems to me to be a great system and the tech support is great, I just happen to need it at 2 or 3 in the morning most of the time. lol

Sweet! Not bad cuts for first go around.

What are you using for dust control ???

Now that is cool!!! I get so happy when I see people get up and running. I used to do the tech support myself (long time ago) and the most satisfying thing in the whole business was the occasion where I was on the phone with someone the first time they hit Start. You could almost see the grin through the phone. I loved that.

I hear you about the frustration. Just remember that you only have to put it together once and for the most part you will only have to learn how to use it once. After that it is all good. I know that a lot of people on here work on their system in the middle of the night. I wish that I could make our tech support available 24 hours a day. Maybe with the introduction of the new 2'x2' table, we will get there. One thing at a time.

Keep the pictures coming! Can I use any of them for our Photo of the Month section on our site? Always looking for good pic's. Thanks so much for posting up your experience as you construct and learn how to use the machine. I can tell you that there are a lot of people out there that want to hear about your experience. Me included!

Bill

Bill, yes of course you can use any of my pictures. I'd be honored as I'm sure you get your fill of people sending in pictures of their tables. I have a bit of fine tuning and prettying it up yet to do. My main thing was get the thing running and get it to where I could start making some money with it. There will be plenty of time to bling it out and make it pretty later on.

24 hours a day tech support would be sweet but I know how unrealistic it probably is both from a financial and manpower point of view. Who wants to sit there all night in case the phone rings? I can see the hands flying up already. lol

Todd, I've learned a lot about the cut quality in a short time. I'm really happy with it's ability thus far.
I did some stone countertop backing plates out of 1/4" for an architect in Chicago (got the job through a buddy). When my buddy took them up to him, he pitched it to him to use my table as an alternative to water jet for some other table project. Unfortunately he already had the other job bought out but said he would def. use me next go round.

Man that is a beefy table! Nice work man.

that is fine workman ship

make me what to ahve ones

What are you using for dust control ???

Somehow missed this part in my reply earlier.

I have a Torit cabinet style dust collector (blue box in the back corner in a couple pictures) that I am going to use. The plan is to route the intake hose overhead and mount it along side the torch. It appears to me that the majority of the dust is blown back up in the air due to the air being blown out the end of the torch. I think if I can draw it in at that point I may be able to get away with moving much less air. We shall see I guess.

The only reason it isn't running now is that it has a 3 phase motor. I have everything to get it running except for one key component.....time.

Thanks for the other comments as well.

Somehow missed this part in my reply earlier.

I have a Torit cabinet style dust collector (blue box in the back corner in a couple pictures) that I am going to use. The plan is to route the intake hose overhead and mount it along side the torch. It appears to me that the majority of the dust is blown back up in the air due to the air being blown out the end of the torch. I think if I can draw it in at that point I may be able to get away with moving much less air. We shall see I guess.

The only reason it isn't running now is that it has a 3 phase motor. I have everything to get it running except for one key component.....time.

Thanks for the other comments as well.

Have you cut more than the small things you've posted?

Dust will be coming up (and down) from ALL sides of the steel on your table. If you are going to do a suction system then you`ll find you need to enclose the table pretty much to have an affective system.

Since you made the table I would convert to water table ;)

The 1/4" job for the architect was two large pieces out of a 4x8 sheet. It was insane amounts of dust. The water table is most likely going to happen. I sort of mounted the slat supports with that in mind. I want to get the dust collector going first and see how it does by itself before putting the time into a water table.

The 1/4" job for the architect was two large pieces out of a 4x8 sheet. It was insane amounts of dust. The water table is most likely going to happen. I sort of mounted the slat supports with that in mind. I want to get the dust collector going first and see how it does by itself before putting the time into a water table.

Look on some machinist forums for people who have done overhead... I don't think you`ll find one person who has found it works w/out enclosing the top portion of the table with plastic drapes, or the whole unit in an room with entire room ventilation :laughing:

Another thing that was mentioned is that when you suck the dust back up again it goes through, passes over, around, etc, all the electronics.

Not trying to talk you out of it... just save some time ;)

Good luck and be sure to post pics :smokin:

Water table hands down. Dust has never been an issue on my machine.

I'm going to have to do a bit more research before I do spend the time on it. I'll get the phase converter hooked up regardless since I have the dust collector and the larger drill press seen in the pictures is also 3 phas and I've never put power to it since owning it.

Just made this sign up on Sunday morning out of some scrap which measured something shy of 12 gauge. I'm not really sure what it was exactly other than it measured .095.
I did this for a buddy that I work with so it wasn't a big money maker or anything. At this point though, I'm ok with that as I like to keep practicing on the table but don't want to just be burning sheet for the sake of burning sheet.......that get's way too expensive.

The sign is backed with brass sheet to provide the color and the steel portions will be allowed to rust naturally.