"Ed Huntress" 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.

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.

I was actually thinking of stone. Specifically granite, for a non
traditional idea, but it looks impractical to DIY and its way to expensive
to have done. Granite is cheap. Cut granite is very expensive. I was
hoping to be able to make cuts up to 3-4 feet thick. Looks like I either
need a $50K machine or to spend the rest of my life on one project. Neither
is palatable so this idea will have to pass for now.