Waterjet cutting for knife blanks

Hopefully and earn some too :)

I want to thank u for going out to the humble KM community and spending time
to introduce your svcs and capabilities, educate the collective.

On somewhat related note I do feel quite a few of waterjet-equipped shops have
a lot of idle time due to them not actively seeking new customers for the service.
A typical KM request would seem to be a nuisance to most of them.
 
I hope the other shops consider something like this a nuisance! This is the kind of work that I want to do. That was the plan from the start.
 
David: I would have taken even better photos of what you had cut out for me David, but it was night time and brain wasn't working all that well. Used my wife's digital SLR as she is a wedding photographer. Apparently I suck at taking photos compared to her :D

Heatride: i'm a moron, what is that a part for? Some sort of knife?
 
Hey folks. I mailed Dave 2 thin damascus billets and a thicker one that had been cut in half for mailing. I also mailed him a small lock back folder blade and a mid-sized frame lock blade. He made a pattern from the blades and has cut the damascus up. I asked for 12 of the small blades and 4 of the large. There will be some left over material on the small blade billets I will use for bolsters. On some of the small blades. He kept in contact the whole time via email. Send me copies of the patterns as I had asked for changes in the blade portion of the patterns. I have no doubt that the blanks will be excellent and I know the bill was reasonable for the amount of work. I will post photos and more comments when blanks are in hand. If this works out, and I have no doubts it will, next time I will have him cut my liners (titanium) and lock pieces.
 
bladsmth: Kidding about what? Not know what the part is? No....like I said, I dunno what i'm looking at. I am dumb =) LOL.
 
Here is the work Dave did for me. I am very happy with the blanks, I have gone over them with a digital caliper accurate to .0005 and only have one small detail that I would like improved on the next run. That is that the notch for the lock tooth on the small blanks is about .001 larger than the original. I will have to make my tooth on my locks a bit larger. I am using 5 of these with kits and the rest I am going to make everything for. The kit locks would be a bit small now and I will need to replace them. I am sure Dave can adjust the notch cuts a bit smaller. Notice the tiny amounts of waste! He had to ship this before or at least immediately upon my payment and the arrived by 1 day mail. Great service. I am very happy
 

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Dave,
another question.
I had some blanks cut in SA some time ago. I think it was with lazer. The finish on the profile looks pretty crappy and certainly not perpendicular, looks more like it was cut with a band saw!
How does your finish compare to ..say.. wire EDM? I have no idea what sort of finish waterjet machines are capable of. I have seen here that you get the perpendicular part pretty good.
thanks,

Mike
 
Mike, the edge finish is almost like a lightly sandblasted feel and look. I run the blades on the highest quality and there are no "lines" like a bandsaw or laser would leave. I cannot compete with an EDM for absolute accuracy, but I will run circles around it for speed and cost.;)
 
Dave,

"lightly sandblasted look and feel" sounds good enough for me.

I simply used EDM finish as a yard stick, as I said, I have no knowledge of what the waterjet is capable of but lazer did not impress me and I see EDM finishes daily and they do impress me so I needed something to compare to.

Regarding speed and cost of your operation compared to EDM, you certainly do run circles around them. I was quoted $60.00 just to cut a rectanglular slot 1/4" x 1 1/2" in a piece of SS 5/16" thick. :barf:
I also saw in an earlier post that you cut a blank of 1/8" x 11" x 1.75" for a guy for $10.00!

Good to see you here Dave!:D:D

Just how accurate can you cut BTW?

Mike
 
I can hold a .003" on 52" of travel. It takes some practice to get the machine dialed in. Compared to a laser, the waterjet doesn't use heat. I've ran a laser and sometimes the heat will warp the material. I can cut much thicker material than a laser. Sometimes a laser has trouble with reflective materials. And there is basically no clean up with the waterjet.
 
I finished one of the large blanks from my post above. The areas that were cut with the jet and exposed were cleaned up it one or 2 light passes over a 240 grit belt with light pressure. I could have left them as they were as the blade got etched. I was able to finish the blank into a completed folder in an easy day and that includes hardening and a dbl temper. I had the holes cut under a bit and drilled and polished those out. The liners were almost done and I worked on them and scales while the blade got its temper.
 
miden,

This is an example of what the edge looks like. These logos were cut by David for me from 1/16" stainless steel. Hope the photo gives you a good enough idea!

edge.jpg


Hey my wife will be proud of me! This photo is actually in focus! LOL :D

Thanks!

Pohan
 
Hi Pohan,

thanks for the pic, yes, the focus is perfect, I am sure your lady will be very proud of you.:D

I was wondering how much material would need to be removed during sanding and polishing to get a good final finish after cutting because with the lazer it was a time consuming bear,which we want to avoid of course.;)
The finish on your job looks pretty good and I should imagine it will not require a lot of work to polish it up.
The thing is also that if one makes folders and you use jigs at any point then you obviously want to keep things as consistent as possible and not have to do a lot of filing etc. after the cutting out of the blanks because as you know, it is difficult to makes parts exactly the same as each other.

Looks good David, :thumbup:
thanks again for the pic Pohan. :thumbup::D

Mike
 
miden said:
Hi Pohan,

thanks for the pic, yes, the focus is perfect, I am sure your lady will be very proud of you.:D

I was wondering how much material would need to be removed during sanding and polishing to get a good final finish after cutting because with the lazer it was a time consuming bear,which we want to avoid of course.;)
The finish on your job looks pretty good and I should imagine it will not require a lot of work to polish it up.
The thing is also that if one makes folders and you use jigs at any point then you obviously want to keep things as consistent as possible and not have to do a lot of filing etc. after the cutting out of the blanks because as you know, it is difficult to makes parts exactly the same as each other.

Looks good David, :thumbup:
thanks again for the pic Pohan. :thumbup::D

Mike
Click to expand...


I guess it would all depend on how good you are at, at cleaning up the edges about how much excess you'd have to have the blanks cut out size wise :D
 
Thanks everyone for the orders! They just keep rolling in. Keep'em coming.:D
 
I have a lot of request for cutting Mycarta. Not a problem. I'll post pics tonight.
 
I just received a tsuba that David cut for me from a file I made in adobe illustrator CS2 and I'm very happy with the results:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:. David is a pleasure to work with, very quick to reply to e-mails and has very reasonable pricing compared to other people I've had do this kind of work for me.

Matt

PS I'll post some pics when I have a chance
 
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