My son bought me this neat little plasma cutter on Amazon for my birthday.
I have to say I'm really impressed on how well it works. it's rated at 50 amps (220V) and will cut up to 1/2" steel. It was a breeze to use on the sheetmetal I'm using to repair the floors on the Civic. If you buy one get a non-touch cutter which basically allows you to cut without having to strike an arc first. You can adjust air pressure and amperage with the two front dials. Once you get the hang of it cuts are really clean.
The one I have is only $200. Well worth it if you do any metal work
I bought a plasma cutter at Princess Auto last year. I needed to replace the steel deck on my trailer and used it to cut the 1/4 fish plate 22 wide. It worked well but about 3/4 of the way through my rebuild it stopped working. I did quite a bit of cutting because I also converted the trailer into a tilt deck and cut a lot of gussets and other bits. What happened was the consumable parts in the tip were worn out and the gap became too wide to start an arc. One set of replacements came with the plasma cutter, I finished the job and bought a couple of sets of tips at Princess Auto. Just make sure that you can get the replacement tips for your new machine from Amazon. It might be worth your while to get spares sooner than later in case the machine is discontinued.
