Water Cutting Blanks

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ruppe
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R

Ruppe

Several people have responded to my laser cutting question that water cutting was the way to go instead of laser. Is water cutting really water cutting, or is it laser or electrical discharge under water?

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Ron Ruppé
http://www.ruppe.com
 
It's really water. Hard to belive but it is. I read some were that it is not new was used some in WW2 but now they can make the water jets better and easyer. But not many do it so I bet it cost a lot. I would like to find out who does it? I saw it on one of the learning channels and this place was cutting 1" thick plate. pretty neat stuff.
 
My understanding its that it is a watery slurry of some abrasive under high pressure, and the solution is recirculated. Pretty ingenious
 
We are going to be water cutting the CPM steels and doing custom blanks for folks that want it.

And we are not going to charge big $$ for this. One time programimg then 1$ cut charge per blade plus you can have the drops if you want them.

This will start with 420V and 3V then we will add other steels for blanks.

ED
 
Water cutting isn't just water, it's a mixture of super high pressure water and a sand like abrasive. I found some fellows here on the outscirts of town who water cut and have had the cute the last 10 blades I'm working on fron CPM 420V. It's substatially cheaper than laser cutting.

Other differences: with laser cutting I had edge hardening along the cut line; don't have that with the water cutter.

The laser cutter needed more space between the knives and as a gripper on the edges; water needs less, thus less wated steel.

Water seems to cut away more metal. What I mean is that the laser made a finer cut line, as if it were a thinner saw blade in effect. If one were making folders, I'd really be careful with the tolerances.

Oh, another plus with water is they can cut the handles from Micartea or G-11 so I'd have less nasty grinding there to do. Gonna try that next!
 
Water cutting leaves the steel in the annealled state or the state it was in when cut.. Laser cutting hardens the edge and also causes a crumbling effect at the edge..You have to take the part and anneal it then clean up the scale and decarb off the edge before use..

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Darrel Ralph / Bladesmith
Web www.infinet.com/~browzer
Take a look!!!!
 
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