Watercutting from Big Blue Saw
By Chuck Cage
Some people dream about having their own Ferrari or villa in southern France. We, on the other hand, dream about having our own waterjet cutting rig. But until that lottery-wining day comes, there’s always Big Blue Saw.
Big Blue Saw offers you the ability to create a part — using any one of a number of commercial or even free CAD applications — send off the file, and receive your part cut on their waterjet in 14-21 days. Their unit cuts with a 0.040″ stream, so that’s the smallest limit for your cuts and corners, and their automated quoting system currently offers parts made of aluminum, stainless steel, mild steel, clear polycarbonate plastic, and clear acrylic plastic. Big Blue Saw says, however, that if you give them a call they’ll work with you to cut other materials as well.
For those not yet in the drooling-over-it-gotta-have-one know, waterjet cutting works by mixing water with an abrasive powder, then using a pump and nozzle to eject the mix at exceedingly high pressure to cut abrasively. Since it creates very little heat — and the water carries away what heat there is — there’s no HAZ (heat-affected-zone) to warp the material or change its properties (via tempering or other processes).
There are lots of examples of things they’ve made for customers on their site (link below).
Custom Waterjet Cutting [Big Blue Saw]
June 27th, 2007 at 11:34 am
[...] We found Big Blue Saw, a company that’ll waterjet just about anything for you from a CAD drawing. They’re still in our project Rollidex. [...]