Water jet prices....

Self Made Knives said:
One the guys posted above that there's about 0.015" affected. I planned ahead for the cutting edge, but everywhere else is final dimension. It was a out 10 degrees last night in my shop, so pics were all attempted so far.
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we are looking forward to it warming up to 10 degrees. That will be a heat wave around here..
 
Nice looking parts. That clean or cleaner is what I'd send out.

I agree with nesting, I don't like it when people send me nests. I'd prefer single parts. There are also tip up concerns that need to be taken into consideration.

I'd keep a good relationship with that operator. I've had people bring in parts to me to quote, and made of them have been much worse than those.

Jamie
 
Justin Presson said:
How does the Lazer effect the edges that have been cut does it harden them or anything?
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Update on my laser cut parts. For the last couple of days I've been deciding what I've got with the laser cut parts. Yes, Justin, it does harden the edges, big time. You can't file them or cut them on the bandsaw without first grinding the heat affected zone (HAZ) material off. For example, my hunting knife pattern will have the entire perimeter ground.The lightning holes and pin holes are fine as is. So, no problems with this pattern at all.
SAM_2029.jpg

Now, my survival knife, that's another story. I drew all my jimping notches on my cad drawing, 10 in all. File won't touch them. Here's a close-up of one of the fresh blank's problem areas.
SAM_2070.jpg

Since these are paracord wrapped all the edges have to be rounded. If someone was in an emergency situation and needed to unwrap the cord, I want these blades to still be comfortable to use. I also don't want any sharp edges that might damage the paracord over time. The holes also have to have a smooth chamfer on them for same reason. The HAZ was totally screwing this up. I started thinking I had made a mistake with the laser.

But, Evenheat to the rescue! I just got my new oven Friday and decided to try annealing the blanks. I made a 2 step program, ramping up to 1475 and then to 1200 at 50 deg per hour. I just tried one blank by itself first as a test and it was successfully softened, except I got a lot of scale on it. Then I tried 6 blanks in a SS pouch. Worked great!
SAM_2075.jpgSAM_2077.jpgSAM_2095.jpg

This allowed me to round all the edges and give all my jimping the touch I like. I like the way the notches look if you round the bottoms of them. Here you can see the before and after.
SAM_2105.jpg

So, results? I have used a hardened blank as a jimping file guide in the past and it was pretty quick to file them that way. But, I would still be left with chamfering all the holes and rounding the internal edges. Even with the added annealing step, I think I'm still way ahead on money. SS foil isn't cheap, but I can wrap 6-10 at a time for $1.60 and the oven runs it's program automatically.

What do you guys think? Do you guys see any issues with annealing them? Even with the extra step, I'm still at half the price of water jet.
 
Noticed another side effect with laser cut blanks today. Warping! A bunch of the blanks aren't flat now, guess it's from the cut edges hardening and putting stresses in metal. And, what's even worse about it, some have a slight twist to the warp. I'll have to try and get them as flat as I can, then hit them on disk grinder. I just hope the warping doesn't reappear during heat treat.
 
I have a jet, we charge by the minute. Your blanks would probably take about 2 minutes to cut. Most cad files that we get or a patterns have tobe cleaned up so you add in an hour or time to do that. We always cut a first article to check parts.
I would say thats a good price.the ability to nest parts saves material and I promise you the waterjet does a great job.
try it you will like it.
 
Self Made Knives said:
Noticed another side effect with laser cut blanks today. Warping! A bunch of the blanks aren't flat now, guess it's from the cut edges hardening and putting stresses in metal. And, what's even worse about it, some have a slight twist to the warp. I'll have to try and get them as flat as I can, then hit them on disk grinder. I just hope the warping doesn't reappear during heat treat.
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That could be the material. I've seen warped laser cut and waterjet cut parts simply due to the act of creating and releasing stresses within the material. I'm guessing if you orient them all the same way (top of the sheet up) they are all warped in the same direction?

Jamie
 
My parts were nested with tips going in 3 directions. Bottom half of sheet had blades alternating point up and down. Top half of sheet had blades horizontal all in same direction. Two designs on same sheet, they all had warping, I can't tell that orientation made any difference. I do notice the thinner the area in the design, the more it warped. I kind of think the hardening of the edges must have introduced some stresses. I'm still torn over the waterjet vs. laser though. Half the price but more hassle, not so sure. I'm leaning towards not worth it, just as I don't have tons of free time. If I have to anneal each blank and straighten each blank, I don't know. Or, I could just raise the price on each knife $5 to cover the difference in water jet and have less work on me.
 
Anthony - just consider the $5 cost of spending time to straighten all those blades. It doesn't take much time to spend $5 worth of time/labor. Even raising price by $5 on a $200 knife is a very small amount and wouldn't think that would cause any heartburn by customers. That's not even tip money!

Let us know your thoughts after spending time straightening a few of the blades.

Ken H>
 
Ken, I've straightened 4 of them so far. Two of each design. I got them as flat as possible in a bench vise with a curved jig thingy I made. They have a slight twist in them which is what I really don't like. The only way to get the twist out was to grind them flat again on a disc sander. So, that's why I said above I'm leaning towards "it's not worth it". I've got a bunch of blanks to work through, but I think I'll try the same order next time with water jet and then I'll have a direct comparison.
 
Anthony,

Time can sometimes be more important than price. Also I've come to enjoy then fun things about knife making, new designs, grinding those bevels, sculpting the handles. Doing fix it work on something that was suppose to save me time & money, doesn't me happy!:49:
 
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