Waterjet Vs Plasma .375" T- 316 

Very nice comparison on the two systems. The water jet has a cleaner margin and doesn't leave a heat effected zone on the part. Thank you!

Hello Keith, Nice comparison. the two machines are nice for smaller job shops imo. We run 380 amp multi-gas plasma system which would do alot better than the plasma cam, but we also do production cutting for customers on our machines.

Enjoyed the comparisons.

I own a shop with 2 flow waterjets, that wazer machine is just plain awesome. while I might cut 3" thick Steel with ease, most people simply dont need that.

G'day Keith, remember back when we did this type of job manually or outsourced to a commercial cutting shop? Small jobshops are all about trying to do as much in-house to maximise the profits (that is how I roll). The Waza Pro accuracy is more than good enough for most jobs , at reasonable machine purchase price, that a small job shop can afford. Very few small shops can stump up 100k-200k in the current economic climate.

Thanks for sharing Keith

Hi Keith, Laser cutters have similar problems as well, the tail of the beam trails the entry side, and in thick material results in a hole to the exit side where you have a nice sharp corner to the entry. Plasma usually causes a larger hole on entry point compared to cut width, which can be avoided by punching through in waste and running up to the actual cut line. Every option has its good points and bad. I was quite surprised that your wazer would cut that thickness. That was pretty impressive from a small machine, and did it quite quickly. I know the big ones can handle significant thicknesses, but are a lot more powerful and expensive. I have seen Jason from fireball tools cut like a "b" shape out of a piece of steel bar, about 200mm long, so 200mm depth, that was impressive, and the kerf width was pretty even top to bottom. We are certainly living in a time where there are more ways to do things. Regards, Dennis.

horses for courses here, if you want to just pop out a mild steel base plate with holes and crack on with a job then its plasma all day long, if you want super crisp brass plate cut or any other exotics then its waterjet for sure, we have both industrial machines here in my home shop and we use them accordingly. your waterjet part took 2 hours but you never said how long your plasma part took ? i would guess at under 10 mins easy. waterjets are the ducks nuts but every machine has its place. good video mate, keep em coming.

I had no idea a Wazer could handle anything that thick in stainless.

Interesting comparison. Thanks Keith!

Thank you for the detailed explanation on the differences of the 2 cutting methods.

Some anti-spatter and better settings on the PlasmaCAM would produce better results than shown. It will never compare with a commercial waterjet, especially on stainless, to be sure but I’m not sure the difference is that dramatic between these two with the exception of a degree or three of bevel on plasma cutting. I can see where that could be an issue on some parts. I usually send those files to my local steel company and have them cut on their 6kW laser.

Great video Keith. Could you show the hopper, and at the end, cleaning out the garnet waste. How do you dispose, and what is the cost to operate?

Regarding plasma cutting on stainless steel. There are plasma torches designed to use two different gases simultaneously. One gas is for the cutting arc and the second gas is used as a shield gas. The best results are to use what is called H-35 gas ( 35% hydrogen and 65% argon) as the cut gas and you can use nitrogen as the shield gas. The result is that you get a smooth clean cut surface on all grades of stainless steel with no oxidized cut surface.

Someone’s making a Cummins exhaust

Best Wishes from Orlando Keith, Cheers from your Number 1 fan in Orlando.....Paul

Interesting comparison. Perhaps you could optimize the program for the plasmsa to account for the pierce dross? Maybe pierce the center of the end of the slot and walk a circular path outward to finish radius. 🤔

An additional benefit with the water jet is the avoidance of a heat affected zone to speak of. I work with applications that may be several inches thick and require machining to true up edges. Heat affected zones may harden materials that will be hard on or destroy subsequent tooling.

Great vid as always fantastic craftsmanship Trump 2024 👍🏻🇺🇸👍🏻🇺🇸👍🏻🇺🇸👍🏻🇺🇸

Olá amigo Keith,gostei de mais este trabalho e das considerações referente as peças!!! Boa sorte sempre!!!

Nice work on the Wazer... Curious... Are you using Deionized water in that system or running any pre filter?

👍👍

A commercial water jet would make your part in about one tenth a time with about ten times the accuracy. It will be reasonable for all those measurements to be within one or two thousandths of an inch of each other. While cutting it 10 times the speed the rate of abrasive utilization will be about the same so it would actually use one 10th the amount of abrasive which is of course the major component of the cost of operation. The primary difference between real water jet machine and the wazer is a commercial water jet machine will cut at about 60 to 90,000 PSI which makes a huge difference. Because the energy conveyed by the water stream is related to the square of the velocity a much higher pressure has a profound effect on the energy conveyed to the part and the rate at which it can be cut. The accuracy, time and cost are all vastly improved. I routinely make parts on the water jet in steel up to about two inches thick although much of my work is in thinner materials. It will readily cut thicknesses well beyond two inches but I have never encountered a requirement for that in the work that we do . This machine has two axes of servo controlled tilt which allows it to correct for taper so even thick cuts are quite straight. Without this correction cuts and materials starting at about one quarter inch show taper and up at 2 inches the taper is enormous and intolerable in many cases. The quality of the water jet is good enough to produce finished parts in many applications but in some applications we use it to cut blanks for subsequent machining where better tolerances and finishes are required. It's a very useful addition to traditional machining technology and saves a lot of time.

WATER JET FOR ME

Do you think using Rain-X on the inside of that hood make it easier to see the part as it's being cut or is it just unnecessary?

Quick question, have you experimented using 95/5 N/H2 with cutting stainless with the plasma?

I had no idea that the cost was that high.

I'm sorry but did I miss where the plasma flange cut out time was said?

Nice Keith

лайк.

Great to see your business is doing great! ..... especially under democratic rule

seeing your back on utube and not even promoting rumbel and even having changed name from the turnwright machine works i figure a lot must have happened , would it be beneficial to go back thru your vids to find out what or did it never get explained on utube?

Did I hear you right, Its takes 2HRS to cut that out. Who knew

cummins.. Thanks for the video!! My son used to run a Laser cutter for a farm equip mfg. company here. Neat handy tool!