Laser cut VS Waterjet?

Hankins

Hankins

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Dec 7, 2008
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Laser cut VS Waterjet?
Doing this for the first time and need to get some good results as Money is sqeaky tight right now.
Will be getting some blanks cut out of 3/16" 1095 steel...

Trying not to pay for too many shipping charges so I am wondering if I should use:
Admiral Steel's Laser cutting using their steel
VS
Great Lakes water-jeting and having Admiral ship it directly to them?

Could someone who has done this offer up some advice...
What were the results as far as Cost & Finished product?

Advice on how the patterns should be done would also be helpfull.
Thanks
Robert
 
I do not have personal experience with Admiral's lasercutting, but I have heard from more than one person that they do not hold tight tolerance and there is a lot of haze. This was several years ago, so I don't know if they are any better or worse now. You can also probably find a better rate locally if you hunt around for a shop with a laser.

I have seen David's cuts many times and everything from him has been very good. If you are looking for quality of cuts, it will be hard to beat him. If you are looking at price it may be possible with a laser, I don't think there is anyone with a cheaper waterjet. Time might also be a consideration, I think he is pretty backed up at the moment.
 
I would go with the water jet. No heat affected zone to deal with.
 
I always go water jet, there is still alot of cleaning to do since the edge is rough. Get a quote from GL he is always ready to quote any project.
 
I run a laser and a WJ; I say go with WJ.

I had 40 throwers laser-cut from 0.188" 1075 and the laser totally melted the tips, despite the fact that they were cutting with nitrogen.
 
Here local we have a laser cutting place that does a very very good job. I have yet to have them do knives for me buri have talked to them and thy quoted me about two bucks a knife. I do see there work a lot in the shop as customers will have stuff cut by them and then bring it to us to finish. Tnhere. Finish cut seames to be very nice and I would not hesatate to use them to do a knife. But then I am planing on doing some light profile clean up. Because two bucks ishard to beat and it will just take a few min on the belt grinder to make it spot on. Now if your wanting to get a knife with a compleatley finished profile that you don't have to tuch then water jet is the way to go. It's just for me i can't say no to that kind of price. The boss at work has the laser place cut out these cowboys and wagons out of .100 thick sheet and then welds a base to them and gives them to customers as christmass ghifts and I must say thy have a lot of fine detail and the laser does a great job.
 
How big is the heat affected zone?

If cutting out blanks lets say o1 how much oversized does the blades have to be, how much do you need to grind away?

Is there any other problems with lasercutting compared to WJ?



Regards Jakob
 
I have had Admiral laser cut two batches of blades. 100 in the first and 30 in the second. I was pleased with the work and the tolerances were fine. The blades all came out with no problems.
Stacy
 
I had Dave at GL cut a sheet of D2 into blanks for me. I was pleased with every blank and very surprised with the number of blanks that he got me from the sheet. I have no experience with lazer cut blanks. I suspect that a lot has to do with the operator and quality of equipment.
 
bladsmth said:
I have had Admiral laser cut two batches of blades. 100 in the first and 30 in the second. I was pleased with the work and the tolerances were fine. The blades all came out with no problems.
Stacy
Click to expand...

What steel did you use?

Did you have to grind anything away or was it just to start with the bevels and then HT without any problems?


Regards Jakob
 
IIRC, the last waterjet cutting I had done was about 16cents an inch. That was over a yr ago.
I was able to clean up the edges with a 400 gr belt.
 
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