I've found that cardboard works reasonably well for templates to cut out shapes with a cheap plasma cutter.
You just have to measure your tip diameter and offset the edge of your cardboard pattern to compensate for tip radius.
You could even print out your patterns, glue it to the coardboard, and then cut that out.
The cardboard sometimes gets a little scorched but should stand up to many many cuts if you need to make more than one matching metal cutouts.
Please note that this procedure is for cheap imported plasma cutters without pilot arc mode and for which you can buy cheap consumables.
Naturally, if you have an expensive pilot arc style plasma cutter with expensive tips then don't do it this way.
But in my case, I'm using consumables for the CUT-50 plasma cutter and they are about $0.50 for each electrode+nozzle.
With my occasional use, I go through a couple tips a year, so it works out fine.
I just drag the tip over the metal unless it's too rough then I lift a little, but it seems to work great.
I also noticed having the air pressure up around 90PSI on my plasma cutter, the consumables seem to last longer and stay cooler. (Instruction booklet indicates 65psi..)
