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Side Hustle - Plasma Table

CarterKraft said:
Absolutely just like the table if you can bend 22" the first job will be 23":homer:

I have 42" 3 in 1 brake/shear/roll and I want to make a bender that uses those dies and laminated dies I can cut on the table.

I recently saw a video of a dudes 8' bender that is really slick, made out of doubled 1/4" plate with two air engine hoist jacks.

It really just needs proper synchronized hydraulics to bad ass but he does pretty good with it as is. He seems like he should be a member here...

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Open throat too. That's pretty bad ass.
 
My latest project, a fixture table for myself. Really wish I figured out I needed more than 100psi through the plasma cutter to cut decently on thick plate before I cut most of this, but it's salvageable.

This is the type of thing that is great to make for yourself on a plasma table for cheap, but you could never beat the price from the big mfgs.

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Edit: can't beat the big mfg price for selling as a product I mean. Not unless you got the plate for scrap price or something.
 
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Personally I'd go with a cyrious table if i were to buy new. With a hypertherm plasma
 
Just to throw this into the discussion:



Somehow they go from making $526 on a project to making $25K a day (the title frame)? That $25K number is never mentioned in the video. Yeah, sure, it is clickbait. Still, how many people will buy one with big business aspirations because of stuff like this?
 
PAToyota said:
Just to throw this into the discussion:



Somehow they go from making $526 on a project to making $25K a day (the title frame)? That $25K number is never mentioned in the video. Yeah, sure, it is clickbait. Still, how many people will buy one with big business aspirations because of stuff like this?
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I have a couple buddies with 12KW Lasers... They can sometime pull 400-500 an hour on cutting, but it is rare. No way you are getting that from one day on a 4x4 plasma unless you have a product with a HUGE markup, and a HUGE following.

Building a CNC plasma is far easier then everything it takes to sell a product or a service.
 
Talon2006 said:
I have a couple buddies with 12KW Lasers... They can sometime pull 400-500 an hour on cutting, but it is rare. No way you are getting that from one day on a 4x4 plasma unless you have a product with a HUGE markup, and a HUGE following.

Building a CNC plasma is far easier then everything it takes to sell a product or a service.
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Yeah cutting "art" would be totally different than "parts".
 
Talon2006 said:
I have a couple buddies with 12KW Lasers... They can sometime pull 400-500 an hour on cutting, but it is rare. No way you are getting that from one day on a 4x4 plasma unless you have a product with a HUGE markup, and a HUGE following.
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Laser is an entirely different discussion - not to mention that the automated ones can be loaded up with sheets and run 24/7.

I can't imagine any way you'd be making $25K with a 4'x4' plasma table. You'd have to have a high ticket item that's in demand and have all your marketing and sales down. Then, if you're at that level, you certainly aren't playing with a 4'x4' plasma table.
 
PAToyota said:
Just to throw this into the discussion:

Somehow they go from making $526 on a project to making $25K a day (the title frame)? That $25K number is never mentioned in the video. Yeah, sure, it is clickbait. Still, how many people will buy one with big business aspirations because of stuff like this?
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I've seen this with a few different hobby businesses posting videos.

They take a job and show how they do it, time how long it takes. Then they assume they can do that same $/minute for an 8 hour day. But this of course misses the time for advertising, clients, delivery/pickup, materials sourcing and ordering. It's basically a sham number
 
So far my "dirt cheap" table build has been well worth it. I've done several jobs with it that easily paid for the materials a few times over but that wasn't the point for me.

The ability to CAD something and walk over and press cut has been awesome for my shop time, be it RV projects, drag car, SXS or speaker building.
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PAToyota said:
Laser is an entirely different discussion - not to mention that the automated ones can be loaded up with sheets and run 24/7.

I can't imagine any way you'd be making $25K with a 4'x4' plasma table. You'd have to have a high ticket item that's in demand and have all your marketing and sales down. Then, if you're at that level, you certainly aren't playing with a 4'x4' plasma table.
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8x8 laser with two gantries would be the shit. Write some software to space the cuts out so your sheet changes happen at regular intervals but both gantries are working on the other sheet when that happens. :smokin:
 
kf4zht said:
They take a job and show how they do it, time how long it takes. Then they assume they can do that same $/minute for an 8 hour day. But this of course misses the time for advertising, clients, delivery/pickup, materials sourcing and ordering. It's basically a sham number
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I don't even think they make it to the sham number level. You'd have to crank out fifty of those projects in a day to reach $25K - never mind all the other tasks you mention. Again, if you're doing that level of work, you're not looking at a little 4x4 table.

CarterKraft said:
The ability to CAD something and walk over and press cut has been awesome for my shop time, be it RV projects, drag car, SXS or speaker building.
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Exactly. If you're cutting out hundreds of something (or even tens of something) it's easier to send your file out to a local shop - or if you're doing that much day in and day out, buy a laser.

Having these tables is great for prototyping or just being able to draw something up and have it in your hands in minutes instead of days. Personally, I feel I get more out of the money I spent on a plasma table than what my neighbor spent on a week-long cruise that is just a memory the following week when he's sitting back in his cubicle.
 
arse_sidewards said:
8x8 laser with two gantries would be the shit. Write some software to space the cuts out so your sheet changes happen at regular intervals but both gantries are working on the other sheet when that happens. :smokin:
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Exchange table my friend. You cut one sheet, then hit a button and it changes the tables to allow the new sheet to be cut while you unload and load the new one or have a sheet tower do it for you.... but that is a whole other blessing and headache in itself.

The idea of removing a sheet while a gantry on the laser is cutting another one is terrifying. Those things move FAST during rapids.. I think mine can do 3000 or 4500 IPM? According to a facebook group I am apart of there was someone killed because he got in the way of the gantry and it literally beat him to death.
 
Talon2006 said:
The idea of removing a sheet while a gantry on the laser is cutting another one is terrifying. Those things move FAST during rapids.. I think mine can do 3000 or 4500 IPM? According to a facebook group I am apart of there was someone killed because he got in the way of the gantry and it literally beat him to death.
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Jebus. :eek: My mill can't do more than 100 ipm and it'll still bite you if you're being dumb.
 
PAToyota said:
Laser is an entirely different discussion - not to mention that the automated ones can be loaded up with sheets and run 24/7.
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True. Plasma is like driving a F-250 Lariet, great truck, lots
bgaidan said:
Jebus. :eek: My mill can't do more than 100 ipm and it'll still bite you if you're being dumb.
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A mill is a whole other type of hurt!

A lathe is the Mike Tyson of the machine shop though. It will beat you to death.
 
Talon2006 said:
Exchange table my friend. You cut one sheet, then hit a button and it changes the tables to allow the new sheet to be cut while you unload and load the new one or have a sheet tower do it for you.... but that is a whole other blessing and headache in itself.

The idea of removing a sheet while a gantry on the laser is cutting another one is terrifying. Those things move FAST during rapids.. I think mine can do 3000 or 4500 IPM? According to a facebook group I am apart of there was someone killed because he got in the way of the gantry and it literally beat him to death.
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Wouldn't be hard to make safe with some standard machinery interlocks so it doesn't hit you if you're stupid and slow and still there when it runs out of shit to do on and wants to use the new sheet you're loading.
 
If you're going to do the gantry changes, you need to do it right. Shit's come a long way from the mid-90s when I dipped a toe in the water on that game.

 
It's common for big plasma tables (like 40'+) to have multiple zones and one gantry. The software basically treats it like two 20' tables so you can run 'table 1' while you're loading 'table 2' and to get the gantry to the second 'table' you have to switch the zone, jog the gantry to the new zone, then start the new job
 
I actually commented on the Eastwood video, questioning their math. Their reply:
If you maxed out production - $525 in 30 minutes, $1050/hour, $25,020 in a day.
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I asked if their table was up to 24/7 production work and didn't receive a reply.

Honestly, I suppose that if you had the work together enough to run it 24/7, you could probably make a business case on those numbers to get yourself up and running with the intent of upgrading down the road. However, at that point the difference between buying a $3500 4'x4' Eastwood table and a $12K 4'x8' Langmuir table would be moot.
 
srf said:
It's common for big plasma tables (like 40'+) to have multiple zones and one gantry. The software basically treats it like two 20' tables so you can run 'table 1' while you're loading 'table 2' and to get the gantry to the second 'table' you have to switch the zone, jog the gantry to the new zone, then start the new job
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At what point do they get big enough that it makes sense to just feed from a roll of steel? :laughing:
 
PAToyota said:
I actually commented on the Eastwood video, questioning their math. Their reply:


I asked if their table was up to 24/7 production work and didn't receive a reply.

Honestly, I suppose that if you had the work together enough to run it 24/7, you could probably make a business case on those numbers to get yourself up and running with the intent of upgrading down the road. However, at that point the difference between buying a $3500 4'x4' Eastwood table and a $12K 4'x8' Langmuir table would be moot.
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Running at that production seems like you'd need to spend closer to $100k just from a dust/debris scrap handling point of view.
Imagine how fucked your little Langmuir water pan would be after running 24/7...
 
Who cares about the table, at $25k a day you could replace the whole machine every shift and still make money :laughing:
 
CarterKraft said:
Running at that production seems like you'd need to spend closer to $100k just from a dust/debris scrap handling point of view.
Imagine how fucked your little Langmuir water pan would be after running 24/7...
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With the Langmuir, I was still referring to the business case of getting yourself up and running with the intent of upgrading down the road - and that if you had everything else in place to have a 24/7 amount of work flowing through your establishment the difference between $3500 and $12K would be negligible. One could argue that the jump to $100K at that point of operations is negligible too, but it is a bit of a different level. I can picture some operations that would be more wiling to commit $12K now and then spend $100K in three to six months than make the jump right to $100K.
 
25k a day is 6.5 million a year :shaking:

Fab shop down the street is for sale for about 5 million(real estate included) ....and they do about 5 million in sales a year with 25 employees.

That's the most click-baity video ever...but ironcally also 'good' marketing. We're talking about it.

It's all about the business side and not about the equipment. 98% of hobby cncs don't and will never make money. Which is fine for a hobby. I'd say 50+ % have never made it past the putzing around phase.

I have a fab shop with plasma table and I normally don't want to mess around with some customer and his one sign.

Also, I use send cut send a suprising amount. I had the circles and top bar made for these handrail brackets from them. $5 each for the 2 parts(bought 30 each)...a small fraction of this particular job. Free shipping and they show up in under a week. (SCS is great for small and low quantity parts IMO...the signs in the video maybe not so much).

 
Talking with my buddy who owns a oil field pump fab shop, he had a regular prosumer table and the "extra" parts of the table killed him. Water and or down draft, repairs (lack of expert on his staff) and downtime killed him.

He bout a Messer table at a $$$$ premium compared to his previous table but the more complete package made him a believer.

A phone call to Messer will have it fixed over the phone, a tech on a plane same day etc.
For him the cost literally doesn't matter because the cost is way lower than the down time, production loss.
 
CarterKraft said:
Talking with my buddy who owns a oil field pump fab shop, he had a regular prosumer table and the "extra" parts of the table killed him. Water and or down draft, repairs (lack of expert on his staff) and downtime killed him.
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100%. We have a Fastcut/Ultracut 200 at the shop, everything about it is the antithesis of making money. The consumables burn up quick, the slags got nowhere to go, the smoke collection sucks, mach3/sheetcam is a nightmare to train anyone that isn't cnc/computer literate, there's no collision detection so if you hit a tip up it loses position, 50% of the time you scrap $100+ in material when that happens. It tests my patience every time I use it.

A 5x10 messer with a XPR300 was 115k 2 months ago (plus about 20k for a dust collector). Worth every penny compared to that POS.

But, back to profit, we buy about 20k lbs of plate a year, and at the pricing we get for anything more than 2 sheets I can sub it to a plasma company and have the parts delivered for the same price I can buy the steel for. The only reason we own a table is we try to hit a two week lead time and the cutting lead time is 5-6 days vs. the steel truck that shows up next day. Anyone that thinks operating a plasma is a license to print money is out to lunch. It's a great tool to support your business, but the business is the money maker, not the table.
 
srf said:
100%. We have a Fastcut/Ultracut 200 at the shop, everything about it is the antithesis of making money. The consumables burn up quick, the slags got nowhere to go, the smoke collection sucks, mach3/sheetcam is a nightmare to train anyone that isn't cnc/computer literate, there's no collision detection so if you hit a tip up it loses position, 50% of the time you scrap $100+ in material when that happens. It tests my patience every time I use it.

A 5x10 messer with a XPR300 was 115k 2 months ago (plus about 20k for a dust collector). Worth every penny compared to that POS.

But, back to profit, we buy about 20k lbs of plate a year, and at the pricing we get for anything more than 2 sheets I can sub it to a plasma company and have the parts delivered for the same price I can buy the steel for. The only reason we own a table is we try to hit a two week lead time and the cutting lead time is 5-6 days vs. the steel truck that shows up next day. Anyone that thinks operating a plasma is a license to print money is out to lunch. It's a great tool to support your business, but the business is the money maker, not the table.
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Cool to hear comparable stories from people actually in the business.
 
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