Water Jet Machine

[Cliff Patrick]

Hello fellow creekers. We were thinking about getting a water jet and was wondering if anyone had any ideas/thoughts on it. Does anyone have one that is in use? Does it stay busy? IF we were to get one, and offered a service; cutting specialized and/or customized shapes from marble, granite or any other substrate. Would anyone be interested in using that service? Any thoughts, ideas, or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

[Doug Griffith]

I use a guy down the street that has a 5 axis head on his machine. It automatically compensates for the angled kerf and produces very straight edges through thick materials. He says he can't live without it and it may be worth looking into. If not now, because it's pricey (30k?), you may want to make sure the machine you purchase has this option as an upgrade.

Cheers,
Doug

[Frank Corker]

Well my input is "you lucky bugger!"

[Joe Pelonio]

The two biggest manufacturers are near us in Kent, WA, and in fact recently talked of a merge but then called it off. Being here means a lot of local sales so there is too much competition to be worth it for most shops. If you buy one and there are few others there you might get a lot of sales to sign shops for metal logos and letters. I only have gotten 2-3 of those jobs a year, and
use Gemini for most but found a member here that does a nice job at a better price.

[James Stokes]

Water Jets are nice toys but right now I would be concerned about buying one right now. I went to an industrial show about 3 weeks ago, There were about a dozen different waterjet job shop there. I talked to every one of them and they all told me the same thing " Buisness is extremely slow right now for them "
You need to check your area and find out how many waterjets are allready in your area, You might be suprised at how many are around you. I live in a town of about 170,000 people. I know of 8 here in town.

[Martin Boekers]

If you get one be creative with is use to keep it busy. I know a shop in St. Louis that established quite a following with intricate stain glass cut outs he had designed and markets around the country.

Things like a rose with stems and petals that would be used in a larger work that are difficult to cut by hand. He has quite a few "stock" designs that sell quite well.


Marty

[Cliff Patrick]

Hey guys...Thanks for the comments. As far as I know, there is no one in about 75 mile plus radius that has a machine like this. The one we are looking at is an OMAX55100-P3050V. Anyone have any knowledge of what this machine can or can't do? They are out of Kent, WA.

[Doug Griffith]

That is the machine down the street from me. All I can say is the parts produced by it are awesome. Check out his website to see what he's doing with it.

http://aquatechwaterjet.com/omax.htm

Cheers,
Doug

[Rodne Gold]

I think you should investigate what type of machine would work the best in your setup to expand markets. Waterjets are suitable mostly for one thing , to cut thick substrates , all they can do is cut...bear that in mind
If you dont have a large format computerised router/engraver , then a waterjet is a step too far. IMHO.

[AL Ursich]

Excellent video link to see one in operation.

Had anyone retrofitted one to a Shop Bot after shielding the electronics from the water. Would it not be similar to a plasma adapted to a Shop Bot?

I guess the real question is.... Could there be a smaller table version be made for the hobby market?....

Like the Flame Polisher.... Lets do a joint BUY..... LOL.....:D

AL

[Tom Bull]

There is a shop in the KC area that has done really well by using the waterjet to make custom knives for woodworking machines. He is the guy I told about before that was setting the machine up when someone hit the "go" button while he had his thumb in the way. They didn't have the nozzle on so what happened was he inflated a good part of his lower arm with water.:eek: Thankfully no permanent damage was done, but these machines are incredibly powerful.

[George Brown]

Hello fellow creekers. We were thinking about getting a water jet and was wondering if anyone had any ideas/thoughts on it. Does anyone have one that is in use? Does it stay busy? IF we were to get one, and offered a service; cutting specialized and/or customized shapes from marble, granite or any other substrate. Would anyone be interested in using that service? Any thoughts, ideas, or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

You may want to look at abrasive water jet also.

I may be wrong, but they seem to be expensive to run. Make sure you look into operational costs and consumables.

[Jack Harper]

OK, I will chime in here as I might have some knowledge on the subject.

First, if buying new, expect to pay at least $150K++ for a small machine. You could barely buy a new pump for $30K.

Second, maintenance and operating costs will run much higher than what the manufacturer will tell you. For instance, I spend about $5K on high pressure lines a year, this is not even in a manufactures operating cost estimates and that is just the beginning.

Third, unless you are going for the high end precision market, you will be competing with every Joe out there with an ancient POS machine that cuts slop, but cuts just the same and with their low investment in the machine, they will be able to do it on the cheap. When I get someone that wants me to cut stone, I just send them down the street to such a competitor, as I can't even cover my fixturing costs for what they will charge to do the whole job.

Fourth, if something goes wrong with a marking laser you can get hurt, if something goes wrong with a waterjet, you can get killed. Take a look at your workers' comp insurance in your analysis as you may be blown away at the costs.

Fifth, when looking at the competition, do not think local. You will land small local jobs easily, problem is, these type jobs will never begin to pay for the machine. You will need the larger jobs to pay for the machine and these are almost always shopped nationally. They will be steady business but very low margin as the waterjet market has moved in the same direction as lasers, they are a commodity now.

Sixth, check with your local water/sewer district as to discharge. In a very fast sweeping move, the EPA is pressuring the sewer districts to limit or prohibit discharge down public sewers. This can also be a problem for your spent garnet, that by itself is not a problem, but with the added cut debris of metals and even some stone, it can be classified as hazardous and require about $200 per barrel to get rid of properly. To give you a better since of that, I go through about 250,000 pounds of garnet a year. I mention this because it is sort of the dirty little secret of the industry. The manufactures will play it down and just tell you to check with your local government, all the while knowing that these regulations are fast changing and sweeping across the country. A positive development is the recent opening of the first recycling plant by GMA. It will cost you to send them your spent garnet, but it looks to be cheaper than the hazard disposal cost method. The move is akin to the electronics market as they realized, often forcibly by law, that they just can't manufacture this stuff and send it out in the market without some end-of-life disposal process.

I could go on, but you get the idea, do your research! I will throw out one positive. Right now the manufactures, as expected, are very hungry and the deals are plentiful. Expect to pay at least 20% below their opening offer and be sure to pit at least two manufactures against each other for maximum savings. With the two manufactures that Joe mentioned, it's personal, and they will go to the mat to wrestle a sale away from the other. Just expect the process to take a couple of months.

[George Brown]

OK, I will chime in here as .......

Interesting analysis. Was not planning to buy one, but had a feeling that it is not as simple as it initially looked.

[Ramon Carrizosa]

We are also considering a Flow water jet with the dynamic head. The shop that does our cutting now is always busy. He runs an omax and seems to be very happy with it. He does take out 8 buckets of sand every day to keep from having any down time to do full clean out of the tank.

The quote we had was around $200,000

[Scott Shepherd]

Several years ago, I was tasked with buying an industrial laser to replace our CNC punch press at the place I worked. I did a 6 month study on it and all of our work load, possible parts to move to the laser, etc. I went to IMTS in Chicago and checked out all the brands and features. The company was quite excited to get a new laser.

I turned in my final report which recommended we not buy it. They couldn't believe I recommended not buying it (it was over $500,000). I love CNC machines, I've programmed, run, and bought many of them, so nothing would have been cooler than having that baby to play with.

However, my studies determined that a laser was so productive that it could take a current weeks worth of work on the punch press and finish it by lunch time the first day. So that would mean the machine would be running for 4 hours a week. You can't pay for a $500,000 machine running it 4 hours a week. We pulled in every possible part we could, and this was a manufacturing company with 75 years or products. No matter how much we pulled over to the machine, we couldn't get it full for a single day. It's just such a productive machine.

Waterjet is the same way, it's a very productive machine and it's hungry. It needs parts to make. It'll crank them out as fast as you can find work. I'd spend some time figuring out if you'll have the same problem we did, where you simply don't have, or can't get, the volume of work needed to keep it making money for you. We were not a job shop, so we didn't have the option to bid work. We did talk about it, but in the end, it would have meant additional personel just to go look for work and quote work, which would have meant more overhead.

[Robert Alexander]

At my work we have a Calypso water jet. It is about 3 1/2 years old.
It has gotten to the point of replacing the high pressure lines, the intensifier pump and other assorted items, because of wear. These machines are nice for cutting thick stuff. But that is it. Now that the company that I work for has a laser, we only cut copper on the water jet. So it is not used that much. The machine when new cost $130,000.00, so it is a major investment. Plus cleaning out the abrasive from the tank when it gets full. Not Fun!

[Jack Harper]

At my work we have a Calypso water jet. It is about 3 1/2 years old.
It has gotten to the point of replacing the high pressure lines, the intensifier pump and other assorted items, because of wear. These machines are nice for cutting thick stuff. But that is it. Now that the company that I work for has a laser, we only cut copper on the water jet. So it is not used that much. The machine when new cost $130,000.00, so it is a major investment. Plus cleaning out the abrasive from the tank when it gets full. Not Fun!

It is a good thing you don't use the machine too much anymore. Calypso went out of business.