A friend of mine has recently purchased a water jet cutter for megabucks and has to keep the machine running as much as possible to justify the expense. It can cut through almost any material, leaving a perfectly accurate, clean and precise cut. I have seen shapes cut out of 4" steel and they are incredible, also seen maps of UK cut out of stone as decorative pieces.

If anyone has anything they would like cut, he would be more than happy to give you a price. He has most materials that you would need at his disposal. Potential projects would maybe include things like manifold flanges, polished stainless dashboards, panels....basically anything with complex patterns. As long as you can supply a dxf drawing of what you need, he can cut it out for you.

Also he is a fully coded welder, so he may consider fabricating up bits and pieces (i havent spoken to him about that though).

If there is anything you would like done, then U2U me and i will put you in touch with him.

Hi there,

I might be interested in getting a few things cut in the near(ish) future, including a couple of manifold flanges. I don't suppose you know what sort of accuracy/ minimum feature size his machine can acheive do you? Also, would it be able to cut carbon fibre sheet?

Cheers
Andy

there's someone here looking to drill 45 mm holes in stuff!!

so he would be able to make flanges (is that what they are called?) around hand breake and gear stick from stainless quite easily?

Before answering i would like to point out that i am not an expert on this and am only going by what i have picked up, rightly or wrongly. Anything that sounds wrong probably is, but i can confirm anything that you want confirmed. So to try and answer your questions;

I am not too sure about the carbon fibre, i am sure he wont have that lying around the workshop. I will ask him about it, cant honestly see why it wont work. When he sets a job up he has to specify the material and the thickness, most of the materials have pre-input hardness factors/properties, carbon fibre may not be there, but i am sure that information is attainable or even just an educated guess. All it means is that he will cut through the grid below on the cutter bed if he gets it wrong.

With regards to holes, any size you like within about 3m x 2m i would say!! Accuracy in terms of feature size would be determined by the size of grit i think, again i will ask and report back. Some of the things i have seen are amazing. He used to cut out badges and things out of polished stainless and aluminium for peoples cars, looked the business. That was when it belonged to the former company though, they have now gone bust and he bought the machinery.

You are probably best to make a drawing in AutoCAD, or similar, save it as .dxf and email it to me and i will pass it onto him for a price/comment.

I'll U2U my email to anyone interested. Dont want to post it here for fear of yet more spam!

Where is he based. Last time I asked a Scottish lazer cutter for a quote he gave me a telephone number for a quote.......got it done for a tenth of the price down south.
So much for suport local businesses if they arnt cost effective. Still will look at the quote he gives when we need this type of service

We are both based in Caithness, for those that dont know where that is, its the most Northerly county on the mainland.

Dont be put off by that though as haulage is not necessarily that expensive, due to the amount of stuff he (and the neighbouring company) transport between them.

I honestly think he will be as competitive as any other firm offering this service, as he is a one man band and needs to keep the machine running to pay for itself.

He might give you a telephone number for a quote as well, but it hopefully wont have the area code

i have a customer that owes me money, could your mates machine cut his arms off ?

Can you U2U me his number please?

I have some work to put his way!