Cutting steel: Water vs Laser

golok

golok

Joined
Oct 20, 2000
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Sometime ago, a colleague told me that super high-speed water is now used to use steel in the knife-making process.

Up till then, I was under the impression that laser cuts better than any known instrument.

Water cuts better? Now I am really curious. I am particularly interested in the technical aspects of the cutting power of water.

How does technology develop water into such a fantastic cutting tool?
And what are the advantages in using water?
 
The water carries powdered aluminum oxide and the high pressure keeps the stream stable. The ALO actually does the cutting. It is a good choice for blades because there is no heat to harden the edges of the cut and good accuracy.
 
Water jet cutting can also be used for materials other than metal. We have a local shop here in Lakeland that cuts just about everything imaginable including leather!!


Neil
 
from what i understand the water cut is not perfectly perpendicular like a laser cut............right?
 
Both laser and water have a very slight kerf, in water jet cutting this can be controlled by reducing the rate of travel. Accuracy overall in the area of under .005" is achievable.
 
Water jet does not work well on Micarta. If it finds a weak spot in the resin it will take the path of least resistence and shoot out the side. I learned this the hard way.

Bobby
 
Golok,

Email me you address and I will try to mail out some literature concerning water jet cutting. I've been reviewing the technology for work and may still have some literature around the office/shop. It's a fascinating process. It's not as evolved as laser, gas or plasma cutting but it is catching up. The versatility is impressive.

homer@innernet.net
 
george/ kerf refers to the width of the cut.\
I was referring to the WIDENING of the cut as it gets to the bottom of the material.....from my understanding the laser cuts straight thru while the water jet gets slightly wider at the bottom??
 
What I meant was the widening effect Tom. Waterjet can be tuned to produce very little widening as can laser but the downside is that the travel speed has to be reduced which increased cutting cost.

I had some 440C cut by waterjet a few years back and on the 1/8" thickness I could not detect any tapering of the cut, just cleaned the sandblasted edge up with a belt and went ahead with grinding. I have seen about .020" taper on some 2" thick material cut for road graders though.

Some materials do not like the high pressure of the water and try to delaminate, I recieved some jadeite that delaminated under pressure.
 
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