Hi Guys,
One service we currently offer is blade scans for waterjet or laser. We have an Optical CMM in house. It's essentially a microscope mounted to a highly accurate XYZ table.
It kind of looks like a big camera mounted to a small cnc mill but is professionally made and accurate to the 5th decimal place (.00001"). Anything being scanned needs to fit in a 6"X10" window. A 12" blade is about max diagonally.
The machine does blade scans very accurately and very fast. Honesty its more accurate than it needs to be for this type of work. It will show laser, waterjet and grinding marks in very fine detail.
So what I normally do is take a full resolution scan and smooth it out in the CAD/CAM software because we don't need or want millions of data points around a knife.
The 2D outlines are really easy, 2.5D outlines are just as easy. 3D work is a bit complicated and above my skill set with this machine.
Its really good for taking a hand made blade and generating the 2D DXF file you need for waterjet, laser, and will become the foundation of any 3D modeling or work.
A good initial scan goes a long way for productions blades. And I'll clean up the DXF so that all points are tangent and there's not a spline on it. (splines are like cursive handwriting, they look great on a blade but are "impossible" to machine)
For $100 dollars I can scan a perfectly scan a blade and generate a professionally DXF file. It will be ready for waterjet, laser or more advanced 3D modeling and more importantly will be done right.
I know there are other companies on the forum that offer similar serves for less. This is however is by far the most accurate method and when combined with 18 years of CNC machining experience is the way to go.
If this is something your interested just inquire or look us up on the forum or the internet.
Thanks
Matt
One service we currently offer is blade scans for waterjet or laser. We have an Optical CMM in house. It's essentially a microscope mounted to a highly accurate XYZ table.
It kind of looks like a big camera mounted to a small cnc mill but is professionally made and accurate to the 5th decimal place (.00001"). Anything being scanned needs to fit in a 6"X10" window. A 12" blade is about max diagonally.
The machine does blade scans very accurately and very fast. Honesty its more accurate than it needs to be for this type of work. It will show laser, waterjet and grinding marks in very fine detail.
So what I normally do is take a full resolution scan and smooth it out in the CAD/CAM software because we don't need or want millions of data points around a knife.
The 2D outlines are really easy, 2.5D outlines are just as easy. 3D work is a bit complicated and above my skill set with this machine.
Its really good for taking a hand made blade and generating the 2D DXF file you need for waterjet, laser, and will become the foundation of any 3D modeling or work.
A good initial scan goes a long way for productions blades. And I'll clean up the DXF so that all points are tangent and there's not a spline on it. (splines are like cursive handwriting, they look great on a blade but are "impossible" to machine)
For $100 dollars I can scan a perfectly scan a blade and generate a professionally DXF file. It will be ready for waterjet, laser or more advanced 3D modeling and more importantly will be done right.
I know there are other companies on the forum that offer similar serves for less. This is however is by far the most accurate method and when combined with 18 years of CNC machining experience is the way to go.
If this is something your interested just inquire or look us up on the forum or the internet.
Thanks
Matt
