Portable Plasma Cutting Grate

[Hackman]

I recently purchased a Hypertherm 30 and have a few projects in the works. But, I need a cutting table / grate for these projects. I don't have the garage room or the flooring for cutting in the garage, so I needed to design and build a cutting grate that is portable and easy to set up when needed. I have a few sets of steel saw horses that I keep outside so I thought that would be a perfect "table" to place the grate.

I fabricated the grate so the top of the verticals were level with the angle brackets that capture the horses.

Can't wait to start cutting!

[forhire]

Slick idea with the metal folding saw horses. Very portable. Good job.

[Hackman]

Originally Posted by forhire

Slick idea with the metal folding saw horses. Very portable. Good job.

Thanks, since I'll be buying standard 4' x 8' sheets of steel, this design will allow me to add my other 2 steel sawhorses to the outside of these for extended support if needed.

[mechanic416]

Good idea, you can take it were you need it, I like that

[power]

Looks good. Nice idea

[CharleyL]

If I made one of them I would likely knock into one of the saw horses and drop that grate on my foot.
Why not make the support tabs a bit wider to span the width of the saw horses and then with a downward bend to provide a hook to keep the saw horses from being knocked out from under it. Dropping it on your foot would be very painful.

Charley

[caldwellcpl]

Nice idea. I would add that if you had lengthened the cross pieces and made slots in the vertical part of angle (easy to do with chop saw), you could have removable slats that first can be turned over when they get cut up, then replaced as needed. My table gets pretty sliced up in the center were lots of cuts take place. A bungee wrapped around it all would hold it together when leaned up against the wall for storage. But then again, maybe the slats being loose would be a bigger pain than it's worth.

Really like the portability. In good weather I could do all my cutting outside and leave the mess out there instead of coating everything in the shop!

[anickode]

Originally Posted by CharleyL

If I made one of them I would likely knock into one of the saw horses and drop that grate on my foot.
Why not make the support tabs a bit wider to span the width of the saw horses and then with a downward bend to provide a hook to keep the saw horses from being knocked out from under it. Dropping it on your foot would be very painful.

Charley

If you look closely, you can see the grate is bolted into the sides of the saw horses. The bolts are just visible in the corners.

[Hackman]

Originally Posted by caldwellcpl

Nice idea. I would add that if you had lengthened the cross pieces and made slots in the vertical part of angle (easy to do with chop saw), you could have removable slats that first can be turned over when they get cut up, then replaced as needed. My table gets pretty sliced up in the center were lots of cuts take place. A bungee wrapped around it all would hold it together when leaned up against the wall for storage. But then again, maybe the slats being loose would be a bigger pain than it's worth.

Really like the portability. In good weather I could do all my cutting outside and leave the mess out there instead of coating everything in the shop!

I thought about the slotted option, or drop in option, but it was going to be a lot of work and a PIA to do IMO.

Plus, they would be loose and more than likely fall out when moving and storing it.

[Hackman]

Originally Posted by anickode

If you look closely, you can see the grate is bolted into the sides of the saw horses. The bolts are just visible in the corners.

Excellent, thanks for the tip!, You're right, it would be a painful lesson if that grate dropped on my feet. I admit, I often bump them when doing work on them.


I thought about extending some steel straps to go over the top and side of the horses to secure the grate. But, I thought it would make it more difficult to store and transport.

Guess I'll have to drill some holes in the horses now for those bolts to go through and secure the grate to the horses.

[skipweidner]

You could weld pins to the bottom of the tabs and drill holes in the top of the saw horses for the pins to drop into. Also be careful not to cut into your saw horses when making long cuts. done that with my skillsaw before then I look around to see if anyone saw me do that.

[davec]

Yeah you definitely want to secure the horses to the table somehow. I have a similar set up as a working table (using a pair of old trailer ramps) as it is all I can fit right now, and knocking the table off the horses is a big problem, especially when dealing with heavy or awkward items. You could possibly just turn your L-brackets into C-brackets that hook over the back side of the horse tops. It wouldn't secure it from all possible movement, but would help a bunch.