can someone tell me how much better a waterjet would be for manufacturing granite countertops. I realize that the waterjet is faster, but thats not really what im looking for. No matter what bits i use on my intermac, my crew still has to handle the pieces when they are finished. Does the waterjet eliminate or minimize touching up pieces? I know they are priced up there but i havent had a complaint to anyone who has one.. any info is appreciated

The waterjet is only going to cut, you will still have to profile the edges and polish them.

so in turn is the intermac a better choice? even a little touch up would be better then doing the whole profile correct?

Chris,

I have a customer that also works in the Natural Stone Fabrication Industry... They work with Granite, Marble, Ceramic & Porcelain Tile... To process their parts they use a 6' x 13' - 3-Axis Waterjet and Gantry Design Table Saws with Tilting Tables and Articulating Spindle Heads. There was not a large gap in price when these machine were purchased... However, if you were to compare man hours per part on each, you would see that processing the parts on the waterjet requires 35 ~ 35% less man hours...

Attached is a feed Rate & Cost calculator from www.wardjet.com , Compare it to your current process....

Regards,