Water/laser cut jimping?

O

onewing

Joined
Apr 2, 2013
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Hello, does anyone have experience laser or waterjet cutting jimping? what is the minimum size that can be cut? I'm thinking of trying 1mm semicircles.
 
That's gonna be a question best answered by whoever is doing your cutting, but kerf width on a good laser or waterjet machine is usually around 1mm or .040", give or take.
 
Drew Riley said:
That's gonna be a question best answered by whoever is doing your cutting, but kerf width on a good laser or waterjet machine is usually around 1mm or .040", give or take.
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Forget that laser or waterjet and that 1mm , just change their place and you will get .................this madness :eek:
waterjet laser .......................imagine making folder knives on this o_O
 
Natlek said:
Forget that laser or waterjet and that 1mm , just change their place and you will get .................this madness :eek:
waterjet laser .......................imagine making folder knives on this o_O
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duuuude, that's amazing! Ok I just reached out to both companies, I'm intrigued. I've got a local Wire EDM company who does a fantastic job, but it's quite expensive.

OP, you will need to ask your waterjet/laser company. However, I will say this... waterjet will leave a taper (even if it's miniscule, it will still be there), and laser won't leave that great of a finish. If you want perfect jimping cut, then you will either need to follow up the waterjet/laser w/ milling, or you will need to have it Wire EDM.

Here's a pic of some EDM jimping I had done, for an idea:

i-XJ5FSWL-X2.jpg
 
Natlek said:
Forget that laser or waterjet and that 1mm , just change their place and you will get .................this madness :eek:
waterjet laser .......................imagine making folder knives on this o_O
Click to expand...
Wow... those results look pretty impressive. I wonder what one of those machines cost to own vs a dedicted laser or waterjet setup. I'm curious what maintenance would look like too, as well as average running costs. They make it look pretty attractive from the videos though.
 
Drew Riley said:
Wow... those results look pretty impressive. I wonder what one of those machines cost to own vs a dedicted laser or waterjet setup. I'm curious what maintenance would look like too, as well as average running costs. They make it look pretty attractive from the videos though.
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I'm under the impression (from some research a year ago) it's cheaper than waterjet upfront and maintenance bc waterjets just destroy themselves over time. But I'm not 100% sure
 
REK Knives said:
duuuude, that's amazing! Ok I just reached out to both companies, I'm intrigued. I've got a local Wire EDM company who does a fantastic job, but it's quite expensive.

OP, you will need to ask your waterjet/laser company. However, I will say this... waterjet will leave a taper (even if it's miniscule, it will still be there), and laser won't leave that great of a finish. If you want perfect jimping cut, then you will either need to follow up the waterjet/laser w/ milling, or you will need to have it Wire EDM.

Here's a pic of some EDM jimping I had done, for an idea:

i-XJ5FSWL-X2.jpg
Click to expand...
Nice Wire EDM gimping, our waterjet actual does cut square compared to the entry level fixed head machines but it's limited in size due to the .040" wide kerf. I've never heard any complaints and we've done a lot of blanks on our Flow XD. Our fiber laser has a 200 micron spot size (.0078") and also makes nice square cuts and only require slight cleanup to make them look really nice. We have a new Sodick ALN 600G in bound in one month so we have a lot of options. The EDM is coming with 0.010" & 0.012" diameter wire guides but can handle 0.004" to .008" too. We will be working on setting up some standard sizes between WJ, Fiber Laser & WEDM to choose from.
 
H2Oknife said:
Nice Wire EDM gimping, our waterjet actual does cut square compared to the entry level fixed head machines but it's limited in size due to the .040" wide kerf. I've never heard any complaints and we've done a lot of blanks on our Flow XD. Our fiber laser has a 200 micron spot size (.0078") and also makes nice square cuts and only require slight cleanup to make them look really nice. We have a new Sodick ALN 600G in bound in one month so we have a lot of options. The EDM is coming with 0.010" & 0.012" diameter wire guides but can handle 0.004" to .008" too. We will be working on setting up some standard sizes between WJ, Fiber Laser & WEDM to choose from.
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Well shoot I guess I spoke out of turn!! I should have said *almost all* waterjet will leave a taper haha. Other waterjet I've tried got really close, but once I squared up the spine to a perfect 90 you could tell it was tapered slightly from the peaks of the round jimping.

Do you have any pics of the finish the fiber laser leaves? Really curious about that - I'm sure others are too! The laser company I have used in the past - here's the finish I get:


i-bjtn23k-X2.jpg
i-ffrRFFC-X2.jpg


And yeah, really excited about your new Wire EDM!!! That can produce an incredible finish. The company I used here for that service basically cut my 24x36" sheet up into 4 squares and stacked them on each other, then cut through the entire stack (so 4 blades at a time). Pretty neat.
 
Skiller1nc said:
Is there any haz on these? I had some D2 laser cut and and wanted to do jimping. I had to grind almost a 1/16" off the spines to get to steel my file could cut, and since then I have moved to waterjethere is a small HAZ but very minimal with a fiber laser.
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There is a small HAZ were not expecting any? Did your supplier use a fiber laser or a CO2?
We use carbide tooling and if the volume is large enough I send it out for a 1450-1550 anneal. Really easy to overcome if you are resourceful. If you want to use HS tooling use a WJ. Most blank production now days is done with a laser. There's a reason why the production companies use lasers now days. The laser benefits far out weight the small HAZ but YMMV.
 
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The supplier said there would be very little haz, they said it could easily be removed with just a pass or 2 on a belt. Mine was much deeper. I also don't know what type of laser they use, overall the haz is not a huge deal breaker for me but the waterjet supplier is cheaper and haz free and also does nice pin holes
 
Skiller1nc said:
The supplier said there would be very little haz, they said it could easily be removed with just a pass or 2 on a belt. Mine was much deeper. I also don't know what type of laser they use, overall the haz is not a huge deal breaker for me but the waterjet supplier is cheaper and haz free and also does nice pin holes
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Sounds like you had parts ran on a CO2 laser.
Strange you are paying more for laser blanks than WJ. Laser has higher productivity than WJ so our prices are less on laser unless it's only a small batch then you don't get the productivity savings.
We regularly cut pin holes undersize by ~ .015" and carbide reamer thru with no issues.
 
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H2Oknife said:
Sounds like you had parts ran on a CO2 laser.
Strange you are paying more for laser blanks than WJ. Laser has higher productivity than WJ so our prices are less on laser unless it's only a small batch then you don't get the productivity savings.
We regularly cut pin holes undersize by ~ .015" and carbide reamer thru with no issues.
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Not to highjack this thread but how feasible would it be to laser/water/or edm cut out guard slots and profiles from material like copper or stainless steel? Could you get a clean cut right off the machine that you could slide right onto a knife? ( Assuming the tang and guard slots had been dimensioned and toleranced correctly?)
 
Skiller1nc said:
Not to highjack this thread but how feasible would it be to laser/water/or edm cut out guard slots and profiles from material like copper or stainless steel? Could you get a clean cut right off the machine that you could slide right onto a knife? ( Assuming the tang and guard slots had been dimensioned and toleranced correctly?)
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You should watch video clip what can do EDM .............
Water jet and laser .........no .
But that waterjet laser .................well watch video ;)
 
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Natlek said:
You should watch video clip what can do EDM .............
Water jet and laser .........no .
But that waterjet laser .................well watch video ;)
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I'm very aware of what edm can do, I've got to use it a few times and its awesome. I was thinking more large scale, can waterjets or laser be used to cut 100s of guards for knifes at a time, I haven't heard of anyone doing that. Could be faster to do batches than milling slots
 
Skiller1nc said:
I'm very aware of what edm can do, I've got to use it a few times and its awesome. I was thinking more large scale, can waterjets or laser be used to cut 100s of guards for knifes at a time, I haven't heard of anyone doing that. Could be faster to do batches than milling slots
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Maybe it is my bad English...............i was thinking that you ask question?
So , only EDM can do that .....what you ask .
And this machine of course ..........
Or maybe if you find place with water jet like this one ... depend how thick guard you want
how feasible would it be to laser/water/or edm cut out guard slots and profiles from material like copper or stainless steel? Could you get a clean cut right off the machine that you could slide right onto a knife?
Click to expand...
 
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Natlek said:
Maybe it is my bad English...............i was thinking that you ask question?
So , only EDM can do that .....what you ask .
And this machine of course ..........
Or maybe if you find place with water jet like this one ... depend how thick guard you want
Click to expand...
I contacted those companies, sounds like it's extremely expensive compared even to EDM.
 
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