minimum waterjet radius???

[mc-motorsports]

I need some logo name plates waterjetted and I was wondering what radius to expect in the corners? When I made the logo, I did not forsee having name plates waterjetted and made it using sharp corners (see my avatar).

.062 SS, thanks in advance for any info.

MC

[carlolsen]

There are several fairly standard size nozzles that range from 0.020" to 0.060" or so inches in diameter.

If you want your cut-out to work with just about anybody's system, then keep your smallest inside radius above 0.030", and you should be fine. That's overkill for the average shop, though.

If for artistic reasons you want to go with the smallest radius possible, then you can find a shop that has smaller nozzles available. Its reasonably common for nozzles to run at 0.021" in diameter, for example, so you can do a radius as small as 0.01" or so.

Tip: If your goal is the sharpest inside corner possible, then draw it 100% sharp, with no radius at all. Then the corner radius will exactly equal the jet radius, and you will avoid tool-offset issues that might otherwise occur.

I should also mention that there are smaller radius nozzles available, but they are not commonly found in your typical job shop.

Hope this helps.
Carl.
http://www.waterjets.org

[mc-motorsports]

Thank you for the reply. I posted over on rfqwork.com and name tags, same as my avatar, so I just posted a .DXF of what I had T-shirts made from and use for engraving. Sharp corners, but I only engrave .008" deep, so the radius is minium.

I did request pictures of the first piece before obligating to 40 pieces, of course I will pay for the first article (not asking for free work) and posted that emailing pictures is fine.

Thanks,
MC

[cagedxj]

Standard cutting tool is .032 kerf. So your corner radius should be .016. There are .020 mixing tubes and .045 are common but the bigger the mixing tube(cutting kerf size) the thicker matterial they will cut. At .063 stainless the .020 would be plenty but most shops will use the .030-.032 tooling. If you want sharper corners you could submit a mirrored image so the actual side you will see would be on the bottom of the material as it sits in the tank.

[Dan09]

I found some information about this on wardjet.com:
http://www.wardjet.com/LearnMore.asp

It's under: Thickness And Kerf