What is Water Jet Cutting?

WaterJet Cutting is an almost universal technique that allows you to machine most materials used for crafting. As no heat is exchanged during the process, it is usable in many contexts without risk of gazeous emissions for example. Historically, this technology typically relies on large, powerful and expensive equipment, which discourages most structures that only have small or irregular needs.

TiniJet

Bearing all this in mind, we spent almost two years working on the idea of an affordable yet usable water jet cutting machine. And here it is - TiniJet is a unique, inexpensive, low-performance water jet cutter that is able to cut almost any material up to 5 millimetres thick in a working area of 30 by 30 centimeters using a focused abrasive water jet at 1200 bar.

Although less expensive than traditional waterjets, TiniJet puts together a solid frame, heavy-duty high pressure generation system and unique patented cutting head. And to make everything work together like a charm, we use a state-of-the-art water jet control system considering many specifics of the technology.

Many parts of TiniJet may be 3D printed if replacement is necessary and we provide you with all blueprint files required to repair, modify or adapt TiniJet to suit your custom needs.

With or without abrasive?

There is a pretty simple rule that if you can cut your material with a cutter knife then you can cut it with water only, now if you cannot then you have to add abrasive.

Abrasive?

The vast majority of abrasive used for waterjet cutting is Garnett, a natural, non toxic abrasive that can come from natural erosion phenomenon or from extraction in a mining process.

Abrasive Quality

There is a large body of knowledge regarding abrasive, what is typically accepted is that since abrasive does all the work and water is just a media used to project it, it is very important to get a good quality of abrasive. Consistency of the size of the grains and absence of dust are two big factors in quality

Dosage and Cost

Abrasive dosage is a big issue and abrasive costs represent one of the biggest budget in using a waterjet. Abrasive dosage is a function of the amount of water that goes through the system. On TiniJet we do not use a lot of water compared to normal waterjet so abrasive consumption is around 120 g/min (variable).