Waterjet Information

The following is information that we feel that you, our customer, will find helpful in understanding our Water Jet cutting process and its capabilities. If you have any further questions, please contact our Sales Department. We are happy to assist you in finding a solution that fits your needs.

Waterjet Uses:

Who Can Use Waterjet Services?

Machine Shops: Allow us to pre cut your parts. We can hog out large or small parts with no heat affected zones. This will allow you to more tightly nest your parts in your mill, save milling time, save wear and tear on your machine, and save milling bits and other consumables.

Sign Companies: We can cut you letters, marquees, banners or other artistic projects your customers want. We can cut virtually any size and font you can imagine. Allowing us to cut out your letters and marquees can free up your valuable resources for assembly and installation. We can custom cut any font in acrylic, aluminum, stainless, glass or any other material your customer wants.

Metal Fabricators: We can cut virtually any material up to six inches thick, and with tolerances of up to +/- .003”. Our waterjet can pre-cut your parts with minimum burr and no heat affected zones.

Manufacturing and Fabrication shops: Allow us to pre-fabricate your parts, prior to your final process. Or, we can create the final product.

Artistic Designers: If you can imagine it, we can cut it! We would love to help you create those artistic masterpieces. We can custom cut virtually any material in any shape. Metal art is no problem for our waterjet. We can cut virtually any artistic design, from any material.

Metal Stamping and Tool Die Makers: Eliminate tooling costs on short run parts by having cut with our precision waterjet. Hard to stamp materials are no problem for our waterjet.

Torched or Burned parts: Have a part that is too thick for plasma or laser cutting? We can waterjet that part and there will be no heat affected zones and no secondary clean up.

Stone and Tile Fabricators: We can cut virtually any shape or design you or you customer can imagine. We can help you design and create that custom medallion for your project. Our graphics designer is the best. And, our waterjet operators are skilled to produce your project.

Flooring Contractors: Let us help you design and cut out your material for you terrazzo tile project.

Construction Contractors: We can custom cut your ceramic, granite, stone, marble or metal artistic design with quality and precision.

Glass Fabrication: We can cut mirror and glass into almost any shape imagined.

Auto, Motorcycle, ATV Enthusiasts, and other Hobbyists: We are right there with you!! Sometimes you just need that one special thing made! E-mail, call or stop by. Well help you out! If we can’t do it, we’ll help you find someone that can!

What is a Waterjet?

Abrasive jet and Water Jet technologies have been around for years. Waterjet cutting has been a specialty technology used in a wide variety of industries since about 1970. Around 1993, big advances in the technology were introduced that have caused this technology to become very popular for machine shops. A waterjet is a tool used in machine shops to cut virtually any material with a (very) high-pressure stream of water and abrasive.

A water jet can cut a "sandwich" of different materials up to four inches thick. This odorless, dust-free and relatively heat-free process can also cut something as thin as five thousandths of an inch. The tiny jet stream permits the first cut to also be the final finished surface. This single cutting process saves material costs and machining costs. For example, the engineer merely gives a gear drawing to the cutting shop via a diskette or e-mail and gets the finished gear back.

Waterjets cut softer materials, while abrasive jets are used for harder materials. The actual cutting is often done under water to reduce splash and noise. Faster feed rates are used to prevent the jet from cutting all the way through.

Application Advantages of Waterjets

• Cheaper than other processes.
• Cut virtually any material:
  • pre hardened steel
  • mild steel
  • exotics like Titanium, Inconel, Hastalloy
  • gummy 304 stainless
  • (most steels cut at the same speed, whether hardened, or not.)
  • Copper, Brass, Aluminum: They are a cinch!
  • brittle materials like glass, ceramic, quartz, stone.
  • laminates
  • flammable materials
• Cut thin or thick materials.
• Make all sorts of shapes with only one tool.
• Cut wide range of thickness’ to reasonable tolerance up to 3” (76mm) thick
• Up to 6” (152mm) or thicker where tolerance not important, or in soft materials.
• No Heat Generated / No heat affected zones - this is cold cutting!
• No mechanical stresses
• Cut virtually any shape
• Fast Setup means fast turnaround of your finished product!
• Only one tool to qualify / No tool changes required.
• Fast turn around on the machine. Make a part, then 2 minutes later be making a completely different part from a completely different material.
• Leaves a satin smooth finish, thus reducing secondary operations.
• Clean cutting process without gasses or oils.
• Makes its own start holes.
• Narrow kerf removes only a small amount of material.
• Your "scrap" metal is easier to recycle or re-use (no oily chips!)
• You can trade off tolerance vs. speed from feature to feature on your part.
• Are very safe. (No, they don't explode, thanks to the nearly incompressible property of water.)
• Draw the part / cut the part. It is that easy!
• No "scaley" edges, which makes it easier to make a high quality weld
• Machine composite materials, or materials where dissimilar materials are glued together
• Machine stacks of thin parts all at once.