WATERJET profile cutting has already established itself as a versatile and cost effective cutting technique. With no heat affected zone, a narrow kerf and dimensionally accurate, it is useful for cutting a wide range of metals, plastics and other materials. 

Unfortunately in the past it has been limited to cutting two dimensional profiles.

However, when looking to expand its contract waterjet cutting operation, Fabrum Solutions spoke to Techni Waterjet about its newly developed 5-axis waterjet cutter. After seeing the capability of this new machine Fabrum decided to leap ahead of the competition and arranged for the machine to be installed at the end of 2007.

The Techni machine provides a significant advance in waterjet technology and is able to cut at any angle up to 55 degrees off perpendicular. A ‘taper elimination’ feature within the control software also allows the head to tilt slightly during cutting to provide a true perpendicular cut.  With its 2.5 x 6.1 metre bed, high resolution linear scale feedback and up to 100 horsepower of cutting energy, Fabrum believes it is the most advanced machine in New Zealand.

Now with more than a year’s experience using the machine, Fabrum is extremely pleased with its choice.

“The combination of 5-axis cutting and the large bed has made this a very useful service to our customers, and we wouldn’t want to be without it,” says Fabrum Solutions general manager, Hugh Reynolds.

The new machine is used regularly to cut jobs such as six-metre sheets of aluminum for the boat and transport industry, knife blades from tool steel with a finished cutting edge, and heavy stainless for the wine and dairy industry.

One of the early success stories was producing pressure vessel kitsets for a South Island manufacturer. After much discussion between the two companies, the old method of plasma cutting stainless sheet and then polishing on site was replaced by profile cutting prepolished six- or seven-metre sheets, complete with protective PE coating. All weld preps were added by the 5-axis as part of the process, so that upon delivery only rolling and welding was required. According to Buck Asplet of Cuddon Engineering, “not only has the change in process saved considerable cost from the job, but our throughput and response time have increased dramatically”.

Hamilton Jet in Christchurch has also taken advantage of the technology, having weld preps added to their aluminium plate components and avoiding time consuming and dirty manual cutting operations. Material savings have also been possible through tight nesting of parts and using specially indented oversize sheets of aluminium.

On the lighter side of the cutting spectrum, tapered inserts are cut from foam for display cases, using the very narrow beam (0.1mm) ‘water only’ cutting system. In another application natural rubber is cut with countersunk holes.

While the machine is capable of precision cutting to an accuracy of 0.1mm, perhaps the most dramatic demonstration of its capabilities was when it was used to create a start hole and profile a section from a 400mm thick stainless steel casting. 

“This is not your average waterjet!” says Reynolds.•

Reader enquiries quote: D090710

 Email: hugh@fabrum.co.nz