On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 14:51:58 -0700, "Charles Spitzer"
wrote:


What procedure should I consider, and how much should I expect to pay?

water jet is about $1/inch. there may be a setup fee.

I send work to a waterjet place. I cannot say enough good about it.
I am having fairly intricate parts cut from plate that USED to be
machined, brazed, machined. Now all I do is clean up the slight draft
on one surface where I have to, throw them in the vibratory tumble for
a day, and they are all done. The parts are 304 SS cutting from 1/2"
thick plate. Most places I have seen, you e-mail them a DXF or DWG
file, and then they load the machine and the drawing and go off and do
something else.
A Mach 1 jet of water loaded with garnet abrasive does not seem to
care much what the anneal condition of the metal is, and the nice
thing is that unlike torch or plasma, no annealing happens at the cut.
It punches its own starting holes, too.