Greg Murray wrote:

Does anyone know of a good way to transfer a paper pattern to a piece of
steel to be cut with a plasma torch? With wood I have seen a pounce
wheel and a bag of chalk used. I have a number of craft designs in the
computer I want to cut out of sheet steel...

I cut quite a bit of artwork out of 12g, 10g, and 3/16" plate with hand
held plasma.

I do the original artwork, usually in wireframe form, clean it up in
Photoshop, then print the artwork as a transparency.

I built a vertical easel that consists of two 6' pieces of 2" channel
with 1/2" holes drilled from the bottom up, 12" to 36", every 6" on
center. The channel runs parallel to one another, 40" apart, and is
welded to the shop wall purlins (40" width in order to accommodate half
sheets.) I use 7/16" s-hooks to support the bottom of a sheet and steel
spring clamps at the top, usually with scrap wood spacers in order to
keep from inadvertently cutting through the easel.

I have an overhead projector sitting atop a cheap, Wal-Mart, adjustable-
height table that I use to project the artwork on the plate. I can
locate
and size the artwork by moving the projector up and down, forward and
backward. When I get it where I want it, I soapstone the outline of the
artwork on the plate, then cut it out by hand. Cutting vertically
instead of horizontally takes a little getting used to, and you have to
learn to cut from the bottom up in order to keep from wiping the
soapstoned artwork off the plate, but it's about the most efficient way
I've found to do detailed stuff on a timely basis.

Please see: http://katyforge.com/signage.htm for examples of
my stuff.
--
Tom Stovall, CJF
Farrier & Blacksmith

http://www.katyforge.com

"I ride a big blue roan, I carry all I own,
In the pouches of my saddlebag, with my bedroll tied behind..."
Mary McCaslin, "Prairie in the Sky"