Why SMP for waterjet?
Most Waterjets are not in a machine shop. We are machinists who have knowledge of tolerances and fits and can perform secondary machining ops in house. Waterjets are green technology. Parts are nested extremely efficiently, typically using less material than conventional cutting techniques. Waterjet cutting does not produce a Heat Affected Zone on your parts so there is no thermal distortion or other thermal changes.
- SMP is a full service CNC machine shop, but waterjet cut parts generally have the fastest process time in the shop.
- All waterjet cut parts will have the appearance of a sandblasted finish on the edge.
- If both sides of the part need to be perfect we can cut on top of a sacrificial sheet of material to prevent a small witness mark from jet reflections.
- It is common to see a witness mark (small cut) at the beginning and end of the cut path.
- Information on waterjet edge cut quality.
- Omax Waterjet 55100 – 50,000psi – 5’ x 10’ table
- Cutting size is 55″ x 100″
- Max material size is 60″ x 120″
- Maximum Thickness of material is 6″
We stock 4′ x 8′ sheets of many many materials but if you need us to cut meteorite, gold bars, or some other unobtanium, feel free to provide material.
File Requirements
The water jet is a computer driven machine tool and therefore needs to have a vector file to run. If you don’t have a file we can draw it for you based on your sketch. If you just need a circle or a rectangle you can skip the drawing and tell us the size but all other jobs require a drawing.
All drawings must be single layer, top view with no overlapping lines and only enclosed shapes (this means no line should touch another line). Please also include a 1″ box on your vector file or include a PDF drawing so we can verify the scale of your parts. Alternately, tell us the exact size of a feature on your drawing and we can scale it.
Adobe program instructions
Send an .ai file instead of a .dxf file
Rhino special instructions
Select the geometry and while highlighted use the “export selected” command. In the popup “export as” window, select .dxf for export type and check the box for “save geometry only” then click Save. In the next window make sure “default” is the export scheme.
File Setup / Nesting
Putting all parts of the same thickness and material on one sheet will save time and money. If you are nesting your parts please make sure there is at least 1/8″ between parts and about 1/4″ to the edge of the sheet.
SMP prefers nested files. You can nest your files online for free here.