Advantages of Water Jet Cutting
There are lots of different approaches in which metal cutting can be done. There are simple designs while some are crude as hack saws but then again, you can encounter cutting tools that are more technical which uses plasma and laser cutting tools. Of course, similar to other metal cutting technologies and products, there are also downsides to each.
These are about anything from heat that causes deformities along with cut line to rough mess edge left over. Not only that, some things can and can’t be cut regardless of what methods are used and this is where water jet cutting is put into use. This method has provided so many benefits which would be explained in the following paragraphs.
Number 1. No heat – in comparison to other known methods, water jet cutting doesn’t create heat. What this mean is that, there’s no warping, distorting or melting along edges which help in making a more precise cut especially for complicated parts.
Number 2. Precision – this method of cutting provides remarkable precision. Whether you believe it or not, this particular technology has a tolerance of 0.005″ when cutting. But of course, you should know that this doesn’t come cheap since higher precision translates to higher set up cost of cutter and materials needed to execute the cut. But the great news is it’s doable. The fact that cutting is monitored and managed by specialized software installed in a computer makes everything so precise.
Number 3. Versatility – there are just countless of methods that work perfectly for different materials but it does not with others. Water jet cutting makes effective cutting of virtually any materials. Noted exception is tempered glass and for sure, there are only handful specialized materials that it won’t work with. But with other materials, it can sure cut with great precision similar to steels, all kinds of marble, wood, composites, aluminum, plastics and rubber.
Number 4. Clean up and time – clean up is another wonderful benefit of using this technology. There is almost no reason to do cleanup or even secondary finishing operation like sanding or grinding for the fact that there is little to no burr or slag on parts. If compared to other cutting technologies, this makes the job done faster.
Other known benefits of using water jet cutting methods are fast turnaround time from drawing board to cutting the product, structural properties of materials aren’t affected as it’s cold cutting, quick setup time and high speed for faster completion of the job.