My friend recently bought a giant plasma table and offered to help make a welding table top. Its 5’x3’ x 3/8". It was suppose to be 16mm fixture holes, but unfortunately something happened and the holes are roughly 16.7mm. The strong hand tools that are 16mm still work, there just seems to be alot of slop. Maybe they all have slop because the table is only 3/8" thick.
Does anyone have any ideas on how I could increase the diameter of the fixtures? I thought about wrapping some thing stainless steel shim metal around it, but seems hard to make perfect.
3/8 will contribute to the problem. Plasma cut holes will have taper to them so your never going to get a good fit. Not sure how much tooling you have that’s 16MM, but knurling is one option, not sure how long it would last in this application. Also like Jason said you could drill and ream then find a sleeve that would press over the end of your tooling. The benefit for you having a 16mm hole is, all your tooling fits that hole size
This is why the Fireball Pro Table kit was created. I see this problem all the time with Plasma and laser tables. I really encourage everyone to avoid these table manufacturing process. The money savings isn’t worth it, in my opinion. The Fireball milled drilled and ground plates with dragon scale is so superior at the price point. This ensures all the tooling and table fit and work together.
Bummer, yes but still an opportunity to make lemonade.
One option is to use a hole enlarging pilot for annular cutters. A casual day or two worth of drilling. Could always finish out the table but sell it off to fund a nicer table.
I’m working through some tolerance issues myself but it’s all part of the home brew journey. In the end my tables will be far more advanced than anything I ever hoped of having. Also, I never doubted the value of the fireball tables but wanted to endeavor on this project. It’s fun and I’m excited but if I were to start over, I’d save up a few more dollars and buy a couple of dragon wagons.
If your drilling process has enough power and speed, chasing the holes out to 3/4” with one of these might help fix the size and make them a bit deeper.
This is a flow drill and it melts the base material with friction and pushes it out of the way, you will need to lightly file the holes to make sure there is no oxidized dross and will need a mill or big high rpm mag drill.
1,000 rpm or higher for this application. There is a special lube to keep it from galling and you need to use a heat blocking arbor or watch out for overheating the chuck. A large radial arm would be best.
