Non-Abrasive Waterjet Cutting
About Water-Only Cutting
Another method of processing is non-abrasive waterjet cutting, or 'water-only' waterjet cutting. In this process, you have a replication of abrasive waterjet cutting but without the abrasives. This form of waterjet cutting allows for the rapid production of parts from soft materials.
Non-abrasive waterjet is ideal for projects that are generally thin, soft, and/or porous. Since non-abrasive waterjet cutting does not use the usual garnet abrasive to process the material, your parts will not be susceptible to collecting dirt on the surface. This is important for parts cut from Teflon, PTFE, cork, silicone rubber/foam, insulation, and more.
Another benefit of using non-abrasive waterjet cutting are our short lead times. Since most projects require abrasive waterjet to cut through thick, hard material, it's generally easier to find open time on the water-only waterjet. This is just another reason to consider using non-abrasive waterjet cutting if your next project involves any of the materials listed on this page.
The process features no heat cutting and starts when the design from the customer goes to our sales team, who then pass the project to our programmers to produce a CAD/CAM file readable to the waterjet machinery. From this CAD/CAM program, the exact replication of the customer design is then produced using waterjet cutting services.
The most obvious advantage of using non-abrasive waterjet is the visible cleanliness presented on the finished product. On porous materials, it's easy for abrasive to get stuck in and on the material and leave a dirty appearance. However, with our water-only machinery, there are no abrasives, thus the parts are completed with a much cleaner finish.
A few features of our water-only waterjet cutting machinery:
- CAD/CAM capability
- Tolerance up to +/-.003"
- Burr-free parts
- Cut materials up to 30" x 48"
- Can cut soft, flimsy or thin materials
- Multiple-head cutting
- Tight nesting of parts
