When is it time to have stuff water jetted?

Charlie Mike

Charlie Mike

Sober since 1-7-14 (still a Paranoid Nutjob)
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
Joined
Nov 1, 2000
Messages
28,365
I love making push knives but hand profiling is a SOB. I'm currently backordered thanks to push knives. Tell me what kinds of minimums I must have ballpark prices.
 
When you have a design that sells, and when you have the capital to order a dozen or more.
 
I am in the same boat. I just traced, cut, and profiled into shape about 24 bushcraft knives. All the time, energy, and belts just seems foolish and not very productive??
 
My punch daggers are 2" approx shatpened and 5" overall from 1.5"x3/16" ATS34.
 
Tixx said:
I was going to suggest the same. David is great to work with. I believe his shop is in Indiana. Look up Curtiss knives to find him.
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Granger, IN

The great thing about GLWJ is that he works pretty much exclusively with knife makers, and is more than familiar with what you will need, as he is a knife maker himself.
 
Check with him and find out his backlog. He has been backed up for months on a job for me.
Not a problem, because it is for a future project, but it would be bad if this was a production run for delivery.
 
I had a bunch of training blades (MA/SD group) made up from a local waterjet place. They had quoted me something like 12-15 a blade when I had them made for just the service (I provided the aluminum for the trainers). You may want to check if you have a waterjet shop near you, might save you on the shipping. I found mine via google searches.



Just make sure your drawings are to scale and they gave me a hint to include a 1"x1" square (or some size that's noted) so they can be sure they have the right dimensions...some of the software out there doesn't handle that correctly they noted.
 
Hi Charlie,

There's a fella does waterjet cutting in LA I've seen on these forums. Goes by South Land Waterjet. If you go to the Exchange and search on waterjet in the Custom Shop: Service Offered forum he and another fella will come up. Looks like South Land is in your general neighborhood.

Heck check them all out and let us know what you find out as far as how to submit jobs for estimates, pricing, lead time to fill orders, minimum quantities, materials (they supply or you and how), shipping, etc.

Looking forward to hearing what you find out.
 
I've been wondering the same things. I came up with a design that needs 2" wide steel, but I can get 2 knives out of one piece of 2" steel if i have them laid out right. I cut two of them so far and they are a pain.
 
http://www.leadingedgefab.com/knife-makers

This is the site from H2OWaterJet on the forums.

I'm pretty sure I saw him say that you can arrange to get the materials drop shipped to him from say Aldo or AKS and then get the cut parts shipped to you. This saves on shipping quite a bit.

Definitely something to consider if you have a good design that sells well and you KNOW will sell. I don't know if getting less than a dozen is worth it... would have to discuss that with the pros through quotes.
 
Check out your local guys. They can give you price breaks on various Qty's. You can ask them to price 1, 5, 10, 25 or more. Keep in mind if they supply the material, they will add a markup for the material. If you supply the material, it can save you some $$. Also, it may make sense to see if they have a 1 time Engineering fee for programming the machine? If you have access to an ACAD prgram that can make .dwg or .dxf files from the Dwgs, that can save you some coin as well. Good luck!
 
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