Water jet cut stones

[DPittman]

Does anyone know of a seller of water jet cut abrasive stones? I believe @PeterT
once included a picture of such in one of his post but I don't recall where the stones were purchased.
I would like a couple of smaller ones to try on a 1/4" shaft for my tool post grinder.

 

[PeterT]

Yes that was me. I bought a 1/4" thick surface grinding wheel from KBC at the time & had some blanks cut of various diameters. I'd have to check the bore, it was for a specific mandrel application.
Now do you mean stones only or shanked?

 

[DPittman]

For a homemade 1/4" mandrel. The majority of the little 1/4" shank stones I have bought have been terrible out of balance and/or not actually 1/4" but 6mm so they don't fit in my 1/4" collet well.

 

[Mcgyver]

If you find a vendor I'd like to hear about it. I want to get some made for ID grinding and have bought some wheels. Thin, fine grit ones. I just have to get them to a water jet place. Its likely a complete pain the ass for them, no money in it and small parts that fall through....so maybe I will show up with a box of donuts lol

 

[Dan Dubeau]

We used to have a good water jet place just down the road from us in Peterborough, but he's been out of business for a couple years now. I'd love to find another good one around the GTA that doesn't mind walk in type work. I have a couple projects in mind from stones like above to homemade curling rocks from granite countertops .

I did some searching and calling back around christmas to about 6-7 places, but only one had a waterjet, and wasn't interested in outside work. In house cutting of countertops only. I couldn't even get them to cut me some rings from offcuts.

 

[Mcgyver]

We used to have a good water jet place just down the road from us in Peterborough, but he's been out of business for a couple years now. .

Small world, I know him reasonably well and we were looking bringing his business into my place. I just spoke with him Thursday. He's been the sales front end on a largish mennonite metal processing business in the KW are which I believe that is where his two waterjets went. They offer waterjet cutting, let me if you want to reconnect with him. He may not speak to me again if he gets a flood home shop queries lol, oh well.

 

[Susquatch]

He may not speak to me again if he gets a flood home shop queries lol, oh well.

Better put your flak jacket on. I'm calling him on Monday......

Just kidding!

 

[Dan Dubeau]

Shawn was it? I didn't know him personally, but my Boss did. We used him a few times over the years. I think I only spoke to him once or thrice. I didn't know he was still in the business, yeah, It is a very small world.

If he's interested in the occasional pain in the ass home shop harry project let me/us know lol.

Ideally I'd love to find a counter top place that would like to make some ring cutouts at their leisure for me to pick up once in a while. It would save me the hassle of having to going around to pick up slabs, and taking them to get cut at another location. It's a low budget idea, ala Henry Ford, to make something else out of what would otherwise be a waste product. I doubt there's enough meat on the bone for most shops to even be interested, hence the lack of interest, and probably the reason why nobody else has done it yet lol. Most just give the sink cutouts and offcuts to the customers for cutting boards.

 

[Mcgyver]

Better put your flak jacket on. I'm calling him on Monday......

Just kidding!

I'll gladly put you in touch.

I doubt there's enough meat on the bone for most shops to even be interested

I've become kind of two faced. At work I don't want to touch stuff under say 5000, its not worth the quoting and admin time. When its me buying personally., i grumble about a bill of $150.

I just need get the me's of the world out of my life!

 

[deleted_user]

almost all water jet cutting facilities will cut stone... they routinely cut marble and granite. They will cut grinding disks... you may just notlike their prices.

the only caveat, they wont cut thick stone say 12" thick. Hell most Ontario facilities have machines that cant cut anything thicker than 10"

 

[DPittman]

I guess I need to check out some kitchen counter places in Lethbridge, there is probably some options for me right under my nose.

 

[PeterT]

The ones I had cut in post #2 were by Clear Cut (Calgary) > 5 years ago?. It was kind of an impromptu/experimental add-on to another job so I cant be specific about price. Most of these shops have a standard setup/programming fee & then cut per inch. Wouldn't surprise me if $100 bill was required, but they will quote. Usually these shop prices don't lend themselves to onsey-twosey / pita stuff. I saw some of I what suspect was low volume nick-nack samples so figured he might be amenable & he was. If a group wanted to get together to split cost, might be a way to go. I was more concerned with would it even work (ovalizing holes, enter/exit hole, kerf taper...) or would it fracture from any cutting stresses & shoot my eye out grinding. But I think its ok method & I see others have done similar. The stones were basically unobtanium in what I wanted so not many options. The big grinding wheels themselves are abundantly available in many grits, so supply is no issue.

 

[deleted_user]

The ones I had cut in post #2 were by Clear Cut (Calgary) > 5 years ago?. It was kind of an impromptu/experimental add-on to another job so I cant be specific about price. Most of these shops have a standard setup/programming fee & then cut per inch. Wouldn't surprise me if $100 bill was required, but they will quote. Usually these shop prices don't lend themselves to onsey-twosey / pita stuff. I saw some of I what suspect was low volume nick-nack samples so figured he might be amenable & he was. If a group wanted to get together to split cost, might be a way to go. I was more concerned with would it even work (ovalizing holes, enter/exit hole, kerf taper...) or would it fracture from any cutting stresses & shoot my eye out grinding. But I think its ok method & I see others have done similar. The stones were basically unobtanium in what I wanted so not many options. The big grinding wheels themselves are abundantly available in many grits, so supply is no issue.

My experience with waterjet cutting is that you get much better pricing even with multiple set-ups if you send a bunch of things to be cut as part of the same order. I get 3/8" plate cut to make frames for etching presses, I do so in small batches of 5 sets at a time.... and I save any other cutting I want for the same order... it usually ends up costing about 25% of the cost to cut as a stand alone order.

I'd recommend that water jet cutting be organized on a quarterly basis as a "group buy" sort of affair... build a relationship with a single local supplier...