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Bulding circle burner - gathering parts

smootz

Stainless
Joined
Dec 5, 2005
Location
Southern Ohio
Hi Guys,

I havn't posted for a while. Looking to build a circle burner. I used to have an old cantilever burner in the shop but it didn't get used enough to merit the huge space it took up. I ditched it and have been buying the few parts that I need from local suppliers (mostly rings and flanges)

I don't have enough market, floorspace, or cash to invest in a full table but I could profit from a nice circle machine. The idea is for a DC drive and torch holder mounted on a large starter ring gear. Magnetic legs to stick it directly on a plate.

Right now searching for a suitable ring gear. Hopefully something on a road tractor or excavating equipment will be large enough (20" plus).

Has anyone built anything similar? I'm not talking about a "stick on a hand torch" but rather a pretty nice machine capable of precision cuts in heavy plate.
 
I can do that but really looking to build a compact unit that I can set on large plates to burn fairly small circles and rings (20" and less) in 3/4 and 1/2" plates.
 
Right angle geared motor with a tire, make arm as long as you need to accommodate your radii. Heavy magnet should work for a pivot point.

Make it so that the torch and motor clamp to some 1" cold rolled stock.
 
sold mine 2 years ago, never used it. Pix is of the "BUGO" unit I had.

The hole I wanted to cut always seemed to be right where the gear was.

Might I suggest the little spindle tracer (magnetic spindle) ?
Use a 12 volt winchield wiper motor, able to carry out into the yard
and set on large plate. Will cut circles, lines, what ever template you use.

EDIT: And if you only have a maosonite template, it's really
not hard to use your hand to keep it pressed up against the spindle.

I have the larger Linde unit (arms are about 36" long) and keep various
sheet metal circles laying around, as well as a straight edge template
for straight line cuts.
2nd pix is of the Linde, hard to see it in background though.

One brand (IIRC Koki) still makes just such a unit, a small arm (12" long
arms or so) portable unit.

Or roll your own:
Lowbuck Flame Cutter
 

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I was at the irrigation supply this morning and saw something you might could use for your machine... This gear is about 50" :)
ringgear2.jpg


These smaller machines have the same type of gear, just smaller. The machine on the left uses a gear that is about 28-24 inches in diameter and app. 1/2" thick.

ringgear1.png


I had them look up prices for the gears. It's strange but both the larger gear and the 24-28" gear were the same price... 300.00 Even stranger was that they were both in stock! The smaller drive gears were also in stock with the larger gear costing app. 200.00 and the smaller gear about 110.00

If you would like more information PM me and I will give you their phone number..

Good Luck
Steve
 
Thanks Steve,
I appreciate your research. After some internet searches I am getting more interested in a magnetic shape tracer/pantograph. Looks like not much more work and a little more versatile. Hopefully I can find one local to copy or maybe just pull it out of my head. Looks fairly simple.
 
No problem.. I just saw that gear and remembered you :)

Since your going to make something, have you ever though about just making a CNC table.. I am making one for a router/spindle that will take 4' x 8' sheets.. The one I am making can easily be scaled down to 4' x 4' and outfitted to carry anything from a router to a plasma head.. Would not take up much room and be very versatile.
 
Awe HECK! When I read "circle burner" I thought you were building a dirt track bike or sprint car ;-)
 
The one I am building is not that much... About three years ago I found a very professional set of plans, about 158 pages, for a CNC table that was designed by a man out of South Africa.. He built 5 of them for his shop and then gave the plans to the world.. Now there are hundreds of them cutting all over the world. Right now I have about 5,000.00 into mine and it's almost finished, just have to weld up the table and gantry, been clearing space in the shop for it :)
 
smootz,

Down in your area there is an outfit called Southern Ohio Forge and Anvil or SOFA. One of the members, Hans Peot, designed and built one of the type machines that uses a magnetic stylus that follows a template which is in the shape that you want to cut. If you google SOFA and give them a call, I believe they have the plans for a very nominal fee.

Ernie
 
You can get a ring gear cut out from plate by a laser or waterjet shop.

Or, you can do a quick/dirty trick. Cut out a ring the size you want it. Buy enough bicycle chain to wrap once around it exactly. Put a master link in the bicycle chain, slip the chain around the ring and skip weld it. Now you can use bicycle gears to mesh with your "ring gear".

What I had envisioned once is an overhead-mounted spindle which can rotate at varying speeds. To its lower end would be fastened a crossbar which can be turned in/out like on a track burner. At the far end of that crossbar would be a machine torch pointing straight down.

Seems like you could make a machine like that cut circles of any diameter you like within its limits.

metalmagpie
 
I'd think finding a gear that would work well would be tough since you'd need something fairly large but it'd need abnormally fine teeth relative to its diameter else you'd likely have problems with cogging and movement that's not smooth enough for burning motion.

If you were to use a machined ring rather than a gear, and a magnetic follower rather than a pinion, it'd be much simpler to get both whatever ring diameter you want and whatever ratio you want between the two "gears". The ring would have sufficient mass to allow for good force between itself and the stylus, and a couple different ring diameters would assure that you wouldn't end up with a dead spot where you need to cut a circle that falls within the diameter of your ring.

Given the cheap availability of rare earth magnets, you could also embed a few magnets within insulators and mount them to the underside of the ring so that it stays in place on your plate without any clamps, etc.

Its also important that you use a gearmotor rather than a motor with the stylus mounted directly to the shaft since you'd need a much lower output rpm than what you could get with direct drive without getting into cogging problems with the motor itself.
 








 
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