Just Some of the advantages of using Waterjets...

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"If you need a machine and don't buy it, then you will ultimately find you have paid for it but don't have it" - Henry Ford.

Above: machine any 2D shape with 1 tool.  Slots, radii, holes, and profile in one 2 minute setup!

I see it happen all the time:  Joe Machine Shop Owner has been looking at waterjets for 3 years, but just can't seem to make the "spooky decision" to buy a waterjet.  Finally, he gets a contract to make 20,000 of some weird and difficult part that only a waterjet can do.  He buys it to "solve a problem - he buys the machine for this one big job.  A month after the machine is installed, he isn't even using it for the "special application" that he bought it for.  Why?  Because he is too busy using it do do all sorts of "normal" machining that he took from his other machines!  Now that he knows what the machine can do, he has also got a bunch of new work from his customers.  He has found that it is way easier to use for many parts he was making on his mills / laser / EDM, punch, etc.  And he has found that he can enhance his other machining processes by doing part of the machining on the waterjet...

(I keep thinking of all the people who used to say, "What would I ever need a computer for?".)

Here are some of the benefits to using a waterjet:

• Cheaper than other processes.
• Cut virtually any material:
• pre hardened steel
• mild steel
• exotics like Titanium, Inconel, Hastalloy
• gummy 304 stainless
• (most steels cut at the same speed, whether hardened, or not.)
• Copper, Brass, Aluminum: They are a cinch!
• brittle materials like glass, ceramic, quartz, stone.
• laminates
• flammable materials
• Cut thin stuff, or thick stuff
• Make all sorts of shapes with only one tool.
• Cut wide range of thickness’ to reasonable tolerance up to 2” (50mm) thick
• Up to 5” (127mm) or thicker where tolerance not important, or in soft materials.
• No Heat Generated / No heat affected zones - this is cold cutting!
• No mechanical stresses
• Cut virtually any shape:
• Fast Setup:
• Only one tool to qualify / No tool changes required
• Fast turn around on the machine.  Make a part, then 2 minutes be making a completely different part from a completely different material.
• Leaves a satin smooth finish, thus reducing secondary operations
• Clean cutting process without gasses or oils
• Makes its own start holes
• Narrow kerf removes only a small amount of material.
• Your "scrap" metal is easier to recycle or re-use (no oily chips!)
• Modern systems are now very easy to learn.
• You can trade off tolerance vs speed from feature to feature on your part.
• Can easily switch between high production, and single piece production, on the same machine, with no extra effort.
• Are very safe.  (No, they don't explode, thanks to the nearly incompressible property of water.)
• Draw the part / cut the part.  It is that easy!  Everyone in your shop can learn to use it quickly.
• No "scaley" edges, which makes it easier to make a high quality weld
  
• Machine composite materials, or materials where dissimilar materials are glued together
• Machine stacks of thin parts all at once.
  

Above: Get nice edge quality from funky materials.

When comparing with Lasers:

• Abrasive waterjets can machine many materials that lasers cannot. (Reflective materials in particular, such as Aluminum and Copper.
• Uniformity of material is not very important to an Abrasivejet.
• Abrasive jets do not heat your part.  Thus there is no thermal distortion or hardening of the material.
• Precision abrasive jet machines can obtain about the same or higher tolerances than lasers (especially as thickness increases).
• Your capital equipment costs for water jet are generally much lower than that for a laser. I.e. for the price of a laser, you can purchase several abrasivejet-machining centers.
• Abrasive jets can machine thicker materials. How thick you can cut is a function of how long you are willing to wait. 2" (50mm) steel and 3" (76mm) aluminum is quite common. I heard of people doing up to 10" (250mm) steel, and 24" (600mm) thick glass with high horsepower systems. Once you get over 2" (50mm) thick it is very difficult to get precision, however. Lasers seem to have a maximum of 0.5" (12mm) - 0.75" (19mm).
• Abrasive jets are safer. No burnt fingers, no noxious fumes, and no fires. (You still have to keep those fingers out of the beam.)
• Abrasive jets are more environmentally friendly.
• Maintenance on the abrasive jet nozzle is simpler than that of a laser, though probably just as frequent.
• Abrasive jets are capable of similar tolerances on thin parts, and better on parts thicker than .5"
• Abrasive jets do not loose much "focus" when cutting over uneven surfaces.
• While lasers are often faster on thinner materials...
• ...it may be cheaper and faster to simply buy two or three abrasive jet machining centers to do the same work
• ...you can stack materials, so you are cutting multiple thin parts simultaneously. 
• ...you can run additional cutting heads in parallel on a single machine
  

• Modern Abrasive jets are typically much easier to operate and maintain than lasers, which means that every employee in your shop can be quickly trained to run one!
  
• Abrasivejets don't create "scaley" edges, which makes it easier to make a high quality weld
• Many shops that have lasers also have waterjets, as they are complimentary tools.  Where one leaves off, the other picks up.
  

Above: Much faster than EDM!  If you have an EDM, then you definitely have a need for a waterjet!

When comparing with EDM:

• Abrasive jets are much faster than EDM.
• Abrasive Jets machine a wider variety of materials (virtually any material).
• Uniformity of material is not very important to an Abrasivejet.
• Abrasive jets make their own pierce holes.
• Abrasive jets do not heat the surface of what they machine.
• Abrasive jets are capable of ignoring material aberrations that would cause wire EDM to lose flushing.
• Abrasive Jet machining is useful for creating start holes for wire insertion later on. (a mill could do the job, but only after spotting the hole, changing tools to drill a pilot, then changing tools again to drill out the hole).
• New technology allows Abrasive jets to obtain tolerances of up to +/-.003" (0.075mm) or better (I have personally done some +/-.001" (0.025mm) work, but that's the exception, not the norm, and only on certain shapes and materials.)
• No heat affected Zone with Abrasive jets.
• Abrasive jets require less setup.
• Make bigger parts.
• Many EDM shops are also buying waterjets.  Waterjets can be considered to be like super-fast EDM machines with less precision.  This means that many parts of the same catagory that an EDM would do can be done faster and cheaper on an abrasivejet, if the tolerances are not extreme.
  

Above: Wire EDM fixturing in an abrasivejet machining center.  This makes precision fixturing possible.  It also allows for pre-machining on the abrasive jet to release stresses in the material, and then use the exact same fixturing on the EDM to do secondary operations and final cutting to extreme tolerance.


Wow, that is a thin cut!

When comparing with Plasma / Fine Plasma:

• Abrasivejets provide a nicer edge finish
• Abrasivejets don't heat the part
• Abrasivejets can cut virtually any material
• Abrasivejets are more precise
• Plasma is typically faster
• Waterjets would make a great compliment to a plasma shop where more precision or higher quality is required, or for parts where heating is not good, or where there is a need to cut a wider range of materials.
  

Above: (Many) Modern machines are relatively clean and quiet.

When comparing with Flame cutting:

• Abrasivejets provide a much nicer edge finish
• Abrasivejets don't heat the part
• Abrasivejets can cut virtually any material
• Abrasivejets are more precise
• Flame cutting is typically faster
• Flame cutting is typically cheaper, if you can use it.
• Waterjets would make a great compliment to a flame cutting where more precision or higher quality is required, or for parts where heating is not good, or where there is a need to cut a wider range of materials.
  

Above: Do pre-machining, and save your other tools from having to do so much work!

When comparing with milling:

• There is only one tool to qualify on an abrasivejet
• Setup and Fixturing typically involves placing the material on the table with an abrasivejet
• Cleanup is much faster with an abrasivejet
• Programming is easier and faster
• Machine virtually any material, including:
• brittle materials
• pre hardened materials
• otherwise difficult materials such as Titanium, Hastalloy, Inconel, SS 304, hardened tool steel....
• Waterjets are used a lot for complimenting or replacing milling operations.  They are used for roughing out parts prior to milling, for replacing milling entirely, or for providing secondary machining on parts that just came off the mill.  For this reason, many traditional machine shops are adding waterjet capability to provide a competitive edge.
  

When comparing with Punch Press

• Lower cost per piece for short runs
• Place holes closer to the materials edge
• Fast turn-around
• Minimal setup
• Thick materials are fine
• Brittle materials are no problem.
• Hard materials are easy.
• Some stamping houses are using waterjets for fast turn-around, or for low quantity / prototyping work.  Waterjets make a great complimentary tool for punch presses and the like because they offer a wider range of capability for similar parts. For high production of thin sheet-metal, the stamp will be more p rofitable in many cases, but for short runs, difficult material, thick material, and many other similar but different applications, waterjets have their place.
  

Above: About 5 minutes is all it took to make this custom file!  That is some very hard material!  Consider hardening the metal before you cut it.

Abrasivejets also play a big part as just one part in a larger manufacturing process.  For example, abrasivejets are often used to machine features into an existing part, or to do pre-machining to remove material before precision finishing on other machinery.