I'm about ready to paint my plasma table...

The way the machine is laid out, the back of a used control cabinet is front
and center on one end of the machine. About 20 entrance holes are here from
the guy that used it first. I welded a plate on the inside so the holes are
covered but it sure makes the machine look a sight.

Anyway, I was about to cut a plate and weld to the back to make it look
neat, and then I thought, "A machine poster should go here". The area is
36" wide by 28" high. Anybody have a suggestion for a poster this size?
maybe slightly racy like a Miss Rigid if they make a poster this big.

More important, how to you protect this from fumes, grease, hot swarf?
Should I weld up metal brackets to hold Plexiglas before I paint? easy way
to laminate a poster so this isn't needed? other idea?

Any of the self serve copy shops like FedEx/Kinko's will have a big
laminator to seal whatever you have in plastic. Another option is to get
an inexpensive picture frame (search on 'poster frame')

Karl Townsend wrote:
I'm about ready to paint my plasma table...

The way the machine is laid out, the back of a used control cabinet is front
and center on one end of the machine. About 20 entrance holes are here from
the guy that used it first. I welded a plate on the inside so the holes are
covered but it sure makes the machine look a sight.

Anyway, I was about to cut a plate and weld to the back to make it look
neat, and then I thought, "A machine poster should go here". The area is
36" wide by 28" high. Anybody have a suggestion for a poster this size?
maybe slightly racy like a Miss Rigid if they make a poster this big.

More important, how to you protect this from fumes, grease, hot swarf?
Should I weld up metal brackets to hold Plexiglas before I paint? easy way
to laminate a poster so this isn't needed? other idea?

On Sat, 1 Aug 2009 10:59:35 -0500, "Karl Townsend"
wrote:

I'm about ready to paint my plasma table...

The way the machine is laid out, the back of a used control cabinet is front
and center on one end of the machine. About 20 entrance holes are here from
the guy that used it first. I welded a plate on the inside so the holes are
covered but it sure makes the machine look a sight.




Too late for you now, but what I did when rebuilding a lathe cabinet that had
a large number of unwanted holes was:-

Use a hole saw to make all the holes the same size.

Use the same hole saw to cut out disks of steel from a sheet.

Use the same hole saw to cut a shallow groove in a lump of copper bar bought
for the purpose.

Note the drill motor was held very firmly, because the hole saw was being used
without a pilot.

Clamp the copper bar behind the holes with magnets to act as a backing plate.
and to hold the disks.

MIG the disks to the cabinet by filling in the space between the disks and the
holes in the cabinet.

Grind clean.

You can't tell where the holes were on the front after a couple of coats of
paint. On the back, there are just very neat 1/2mm high circles that I didn't
bother to grind, just painted over.

There was no noticeable distortion of the panels :-)

Mark Rand
RTFM