The perspective gets skewed. I am closer to the type of thing most do here. I have all of it, havnt turned on a tig in a d4ecade, don't own any monel, titanium, been a decade since I did a piece of stainless and even then chucked an electrode in, don't have brewing or a need for sanitary work and am not specifically in motor sports. I do hundreds of builds, 1000's of maintenance and repair jobs, havnt needed a hole in a table, a special clamp or flat table in 40 years of this and on the rare occasion I need precision shim a pinch if needed. Very rare.
If I worked a job where it was all alloy and did spec work for others it would be slightly different but worked on a nuke, never saw a certiflat table. Benches where they did have them in the fab shop was a plate on horses. Loot at flanghe jocky does the fancy pipe pics, none of that ****, most piping in a nuke was dome on a tripod and edges of tool boxes or in place.
A good share of the worlds fab work is done with a welder a torch and tools can fit in a 5 gallon bucket. Not every cut needs to be precision. I only notice most if it is truly horrible. Built 300 steel benches for a plant, not a drilled hole in them. Built with a tape measure, a square and a welding machine with a sander to smooth edges.
I would be lost without a wire feed, make 1000's of welds a year with them, not 1 tig.
When did this become about TIG welding, nuclear piping and welding tables? Good God man, we get it. You can hack with the best of them. If OP wants a sketchy cut that takes a while and makes a mess, have at it with a grinder.
I was simply looking at value for money. If I had no tools, and wanted this job done, I'd make a call. I have a torch, plasma, mills, grinders, saws and all, that, and I'd still hire it done. Because I know when to hire a job and still come out ahead. A laser or plasma will result in a perfect cut with little to no work needed after the fact. I'll get a better job, for less effort. And then while the top is being cut, I can fab the base, or work on my truck, or just sit and drink a beer.
A plate saw costs, what, $200? Getting this job done by any number of methods in a shop would result in a nice finish, with little to no horsing around, FOR LESS MONEY! OP has no way to do this and get a result even close to what you'd get with even a straightedge and a cutting torch.
Most shops even offer pickup and delivery. My laser guy has a flatbed truck that goes out every day, all over town. One phone call. Done. Most guys don't even bother to ask about that.
We're not talking high brow and snooty here. This is down and dirty fab work. No need to re-invent the wheel just for the sake of "DIY".
Yes, I have a shop. Yes, I do metalwork of all kinds for a living. Yes, I know the insides of the industry. But what that gives me is an informed perspective. When the home guy come on this forum and asks a question about the best way to go about something, I will do my best to give the answer I think is appropriate. I didn't say, "go buy an expensive tool you may only use once". Nor did I say, "go for it, down and dirty with a sawblade that wasn't designed for your application". I gave advice leaning on my experience making things.
I look at things in the way of how I would do a job if I was trying to make money, because that tends to weed out ideas that have less merit, for one reason or another. I've usually done the other ways and said "That sucked. Don't want to do that again".
Good luck, OP. I hope whatever you end up doing you are happy with.
