Precision Waterjet Cutting Services - Your Waterjet Subcontractor

Cut virtually any shape in any material

Waterjet Cutting Process

Both Water only, and Abrasive Water Jet Cutting are the technologies used by Precision Waterjet to cut virtually any shape in any material.

You may have heard of the generic terms “Waterjet”, “Abrasive jet” and “Flowjet”. Waterjet cutting technology has been around since the early seventies but was of little value to engineers as then it was only capable of cutting thin gasket and foam materials. High Pressure water cutting with Abrasive feed extended the concept about 10 years later.

With innovative accessories such as the Tilt-A-Jet®, optical locators and a pneumatic drill we cut virtually any material in the world up to 200mm thick. Omax IntelliMAX Premium Software also provides a world class nesting software to ensure we can maximise material usage, reduce waste and ultimately reduce cost per part.

We carry a large range of material stock in various thicknesses and grades, ferrous and non-ferrous. This enables us to deliver parts in under 24 hours if required. If we do not have the material on the shelf our suppliers ship next day ensuring a swift turnaround.

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Water only v abrasive waterjet cutting

Water Only

Water only waterjets use the beam of water exiting the orifice (or jewel) to cut soft materials like confectionery and foam etc. but are not effective for cutting harder materials.

Abrasive Waterjet Cutting

Abrasive waterjets use that same beam of water to accelerate abrasive particles to speeds fast enough to cut through much harder materials.

Today, cutting through 200mm of stainless steel, with a square edge, to close tolerance is no longer fiction – it is a reality with the right type of machine.

Why choose Precision waterjet

Precision

We offer precision waterjet cutting from +/- 0.075mm on profile and +/- 0.025mm on feature position.

Square edges

Our machinery offers precision square edge cutting, no draft angles on our abrasive water cut edges.

Further machining

Further machining or attention to achieve a clean cut edge is often not necessary when using waterjet cutting solutions.

Materials

Our vast knowledge can help source all types of materials and thicknesses. We are able to supply to many industries.

Fast turnaround

We pride ourselves on a fast turnaround of both quotations and the waterjet cutting process.

Minimum material usage

Due to the ability to closely nest parts together we able to reduce the wastage of materials.

Waterjet cutting applications

Abrasive Waterjet cuts virtually any profile in any material to +/- 0.075mm

Carbon fibre – due to the weave of carbon fibre, typically waterjets can cause de-lamination. We have tooling to mitigate this problem.
Stainless steel cutting – traditionally slow to cut with conventional tooling – easy with water jet.
Plastic cutting – intricate parts are quick to nest and cut without special clamping requirements.
Pre hardened steel – machine after hardening and forget distortion worries.
Mild steel – cut complex profiles with high accuracy.
Exotics like Titanium, Inconel, Hastalloy – nest parts and with minimum kerf width save huge amounts on material cost.
Copper, Brass, Aluminium cutting – as per exotics above, save on material costs.
Brittle materials like glass, ceramics, quartz, stone – water jet cutting is fast.
Marble – cut to any profile quickly.
Laminates – difficult to saw/mill, easy to water jet.

How does waterjet cutting compare…

When comparing with lasers:

Abrasive waterjets machine materials that lasers cannot. (In particular reflective materials such as Aluminium and Copper.)
Abrasive jets do not heat your part, thus there is no thermal distortion or hardening of the material.
Precision abrasive jet machines can obtain the same or higher tolerances than lasers, especially as thickness increases.
Abrasive jets can machine thicker materials. How thick you can cut is a function of how long you are willing to wait. 2″ steel and 3″ aluminium are quite normal, whereas lasers are limited to 20mm (high powered laser).
Material can be stacked in order to cut multiple thin parts simultaneously.
Abrasivejets don’t create “scaley” edges, which makes it easier to produce a high quality weld.

When comparing waterjet cutting with EDM:

Abrasive jets are much faster than EDM.
Abrasive Jets machine a wider variety of materials (virtually any material).
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.
New technology allows Abrasive jets to obtain tolerances of up to +/- 0.075mm or better.
No heat affected zone with Abrasive jets.
Abrasive jets require less setup.