A couple of years ago, I bought this cheapo Chinese plasma cutter.

Initially, I wasn't impressed, but when I built my new shop and included a crude air dryer, it really started to perform.



This is the tailgate off Dale the Builder's dump truck. Either he or one of his construction apes dropped a tree on it, bent the top edge and release mechanism badly enough that we had to cut the pin off to get it off the truck.

Insurance company bought him a new one several months ago and this one has been laying in the weeds. He's not happy with the new one, much lighter duty and doesn't fit as well (shocking...an insurance company cheaping out on replacement parts???) so he wanted me to dig this out of the weeds and see if I could fix it.

Used the plasma to chop the worst of the bent up box section out of the top. The inner skin is still bent a little but I think I can beat that straight enough. Relatively light metal, I think my shop press and homey-made brake will be adequate to bend up a replacement section. If I can tweak the rest of the bend out of it and weld in a patch, it should be usable.

Cool. I like that sort of work. Take something with minor damage and whip it back into usable condition. All of the old museum pieces at the shuttered industrial sites around the country show lots of practical major repairs. They did what needed to be done to keep it running.
I ordered a major brand name plasma cutter from a supplier on that manufacturers website. I paid 10x the price of that cheapy and I have been waiting over two months for the back order. I am very disappointed that I really only bought a spot on a waiting list. It’s easy to see how these cheapies are more and more attractive. If the cheapy only lasts a few years it is cheaper to throw it out and replace it than to make one repair on a name brand machine.

I kind of liked the job description of the "construction ape".

1. Plasma cutters are great machines. Love using mine. Kind of makes cutting steel more like cutting clay with a butter knife.
2. Clean, dry air is critical. The plasma arc is something above 60,000*. Trying to blow moisture through it causes an incredibly fast transition to steam, tending to blow up nozzle parts.

Along those lines, I would be curious to hear the opinion of some scientist about the interaction of that temperature and water. I suppose it possible that the water might break down into O2 and H2, compounding the nozzle disassembly.