"Bob La Londe" wrote in message
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"Jon Elson" wrote in message
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Bob La Londe wrote:
Anybody here play with this kind of cutter? What kind of water
pressures does it take? How is the nozzle shaped internally? What kind
of thickness can you cut? What kind of volume of water does it move?



Typical units use about 40,000 to 50,000 PSI, and maybe half a
gallon/minute. The water is loaded with garnet grit to do the actual
cutting. I watched a demo of cutting 1/2" diameter holes through a 4"
block of Inconel, which was really quite impressive. It took maybe 2
minutes for each hole.

Yeah, that's the kind of pressure I am seeing too. Looks like there is no
poor man's DIY setup for that either.

I have worked around a number of water jet machines, for both cutting and
blasting, nothing about them are cheap in any way. Maintenance on those 50k
PSI pumps can be brutal and filtration of the waste water expensive. IIRC,
our machines had to use deionized water.