Waterjets

[Tony Snyder]

I have learned that industry has had good success using water jet cutting; inlays for guitars and pool cues, precision cutting of materials used in piano construction, and even in cabinet and furniture building.

Has anyone heard of water jets being used instead of chainsaws? I heard of a rumor of a contractor who clears timber from cross country power lines using a water jet from a boom bucket. Will saws of the future be pumps hooked to hoses leading to water tanks or would the horsepower requirements be too great for a hand held unit?

I would expect this prospect would make Walt's wheels spin.

 

[buckwheat]

'just some random thoughts on this:
- having a sufficient water source in the field could be problematic.
- if its a centrifugal pump, the water would need to be very clean to resist fouling the impellor.
- elevation is a factor. specific gravity will only allow a pump to pull water around 33 feet, so a series of volume to pressure pumps would be needed for bucket operations.
- closest thing i can think of is a Bean high pressure fire pump, but i don't think they reach nearly the pressures needed for industrial cutting.

initial impression - not yet feasible.

'now lets talk about laser cutting!

 

[confused]

Bring on the magnetically incased plasma light sabers.

 

[TonyM]

I worked as an engineer for a company that built high pressure water cutting and stripping systems. We did not build the pumps and intensifiers, those came from Flow International, just the robotics and multi-axis tables. Those babies cranked out 60,000 psi. These pressures require extreme caution in the design of the plumbing and saftey of those around the equipment. The pumps, intensifiers, and orifices are all extremely maintenacne intensive. I really can't see this being a cost effective way to trim trees, when you can buy a chainsaw for less than the maintenance cost on a high pressure system like this, yet alone the initial purchase price.

 

[confused]

snydert,

On top of what Tony is saying also. A friend of mine does maintenance for a company that uses HP cutting and if they detect a pressure drop they don’t just try and find the leak (because in finding the leak it could sever your hand) they simply replace the whole dang line. So if you sprung a leak with this HP line it could be very dangerous to you and those whom would be working around you. As marty says Safety first