Pantograph Oxy-Fuel/Plasma Shspe Cutting Machine

**tmate3** · Jan 25, 2021, 12:00 PM

About 40 years ago, I fabricated this pantograph shape cutting machine. I first used it with an acetylene cutting torch, and later with plasma arc. It used a Grainger gear motor and an MRC model railroad transformer.

While this wasn't the first such machine that I had built, it was the first to use a magnetic tracer. The magnetic tracer was arrived at after a good bit of experimentation with rare earth magnets, which were new (at least to me) at the time. The whole deal sat on an empty 55 gallon drum, which I had to take care to empty before it got too heavy.

The second photo is a more recent version made largely from 8020 aluminum extrusions. It uses the same magnetic tracer.

Pantograph Oxy-Fuel/Plasma Shspe Cutting Machine-pantograph-55-gal-drum2.jpg

Pantograph Oxy-Fuel/Plasma Shspe Cutting Machine-img_9588.jpg

**TnTrader** · Jan 25, 2021, 05:47 PM

Nice build. Please continue to show how to build the plasma cnc table. I want to build one. Any specific material list(s) would be appreciated!

**tmate3** · Jan 25, 2021, 07:34 PM

Just about all the information I have on the CNC table can be found in this thread: CNC Plasma Cutting in a Small Space

I probably have some more information on the above pantograph machine, if that is what you are referring to.

**BuffaloJohn** · Jan 25, 2021, 11:25 PM

I built something like this about 15 years ago. I had a big stack of saw blades from a mill (24" ish in diameter) and I wanted to make lots of throwing knives. I made patterns for the knives out of acrylic plate we had in the scrap pile. I made a two hinged arm like what you see (made from an assembly that moved a bus seat up and down). The top of the outer most piece had a rod to follow the contour of the item being traced and the plasma torch on the bottom of the outermost piece aligned with the rod on the top. Ended up with over 120 throwing knives, then we made two other different shapes and made more knives. Dismantled the device about 5 years ago, used up all the blades and had no source for more - couldn't think of anything I could use it for...