"Jon Elson" wrote in message
...
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.

Jon

Today's commercial WJCs use garnet, but it's interesting to note that the
early experiments, and some of the early commercial units, could do some
amazing cutting with water alone. In fact, I remember one company that I
reported on that sold the same model to a company that was slicing Sarah Lee
chocolate cakes and, in the building next door, to one that cut
cement-reinforced slag-fiber ("rock wool") insulation panels.

You can cut steel with plain water, but it's very slow. I haven't kept up
but I think that all of the commercial units designed for cutting metal now
use abrasive grit. Still, the ability to cut with plain water is a read
head-shaker, IMO.

--
Ed Huntress