Why and When to use Water Jet Cutting

Author: Luke Gilrane

Water jet cutting machines are suitable for cutting sheet metals into bespoke two dimensional components. Even with hard material such as metal, the water jet machine will provide a high quality edge finish. The adding of abrasive substrates into the water will ensure the quality of the cutting edge is maintained on the most intricately detailed metal parts.

Water jet cutting machines are suitable for cutting a vast range of material types in to very simple and complicated finished components:

When cutting delicate materials.If your finished or semi-finished component is to be cut from thin or delicate materials such as felt and foam, gasket work water jetting is ideal as the purity of water will prevent any damage to the fragile material.

When cutting harder materials. Not only will suit flimsy and fragile materials; the abrasive water cutting facility also allows the cutting of hard materials such as metals. Even with such hard materials, abrasive water cutting is possible for even the most intricate parts.

When cutting thick materials. Our water jet cutter can cut sheet materials up to 200mm in thickness.

When a high tolerance is required. Cutting is very precise with a tolerance of +/- 0.1mm.

When you need a fast turnaround. When compared to other engineering machines, water jet cutting machines have an exceptionally quick set up time, our machine also operates two cutting heads at the same time for quick production cycles.

Can you handle delicate materials?

  1. If the finished or semi-finished component is to be cut from thin or delicate materials as the purity of the water will prevent any damage to the delicate material.
  2. Felts, foams, rubbers, synthetics and gasket work would all be regarded as thin or delicate materials.
  3. Even when tight nesting or intricate machining of the finished components is essential there will be no damage to the material.

More Good Reasons to Water Jet:

  1. The water jet cutting tolerances can be very precise at up to 0.1mm.
  2. The set up time of the water jet cutting machine is very quick which therefore minimises production lead times.
  3. The machine uses two cutting heads simultaneously for rapid production.

Cost Effective Cutting

Water jet cutting will offer cost effective smaller production runs due to the limited labour time required on machine set up and the machine cutting speeds.

Partwell Group offers a complete water jet cutting facility, not only can we cut with pure water to protect your delicate and thin materials; but we can also cut with abrasive added water which will enable the machine to cleanly and accurately water jet cut thicker and tougher materials.