Precision Metalworking: Techniques for Achieving High Accuracy

Sep 9, 2024

To you lasers and blasters may sound like things from a sci-fi novel, but for us they are essential pieces in our everyday toolkit for crafting large-scale metalworks with the utmost precision. In this article we discuss the mind blowing power of fiber lasers and water jets and offer you an insider look at how we incorporate them into our metalworking process. Let’s get started!

Set Lasers to Stun

 

 

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For decades, lasers have captured the hearts and imagination of sci-fi fans worldwide with stunning on-screen displays of colorful ray beams being blasted from planet sized super ships. But Latest Metalworks’s lasers are nothing like the planet exploding technology of the dreaded Death Star, which reduced the planet Alderaan to a pile of rubber in one wild blast. 

 

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Our fiber lasers cut metal with pinpoint accuracy — boasting a tolerance of a mere thousandth of an inch! They produce clean cuts with small kerf and minimal slag, reducing the amount of wasted metal and the total cost of your project. From flat sheets to rounded tubes, angled metals, and more, fiber lasers cut intricate designs while creating less waste when compared to more traditional techniques, like shearing.

Fiber lasers are also highly versatile and can be used for a variety of cuts: including coping; mitering; and cutting holes and slots for bolts, screws and wiring.

*Not everyone speaks metalhead. If any of the jargon we’ve mentioned thus far has left you guessing, you’re in luck! A very helpful copywriter has included the following appendix to help you find your bearings: 

Slag – the byproduct of cutting and welding, slag consists of melted metal, flux, or other impurities that solidify on the surface of the workpiece.

Kerf – the width of material removed during a cutting process. When you cut metal, the tools you use remove a certain amount of extra material, creating a gap. This gap is the kerf.

Coping – cutting the end of a metal piece of metal so that it easily fits around another

Mitering – cutting the ends of metal pieces at an angle, usually 45 degrees, so that they can be joined together to form a corner. 

 

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How Can Water Cut Metal? 

 

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A 60,000 psi blast from a Latest Metalworks water jet will pass through a piece of steel like a hot knife through butter. Boasting 0.001 inch linear accuracy, these jets are 500 times more powerful than a blast from a fire hose and infinitely more precise. For reference, try to imagine the tip of your pen blasting 3 gallons of water per minute with so much force that your arm would be ripped from its socket, like the kick from some sort of military-grade super soaker bazooka tested in an underground bunker in New Mexico but never even considered for mass production. 

 

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From steel to granite and foam to ceramics, our Omax Abrasive Waterjets offer a clean cut every time! This sophisticated waterjet features an abrasive grit, or garnet, which helps us get through stronger, thicker material faster without sacrificing edge quality. We can also operate without garnet for an even cleaner edge finish for lower-density materials like foams and plastics.

Conclusion

Our master craftsmen want to turn your vision into a reality. Through careful planning and precision tools, we’re able to craft mind-blowing metalworks which take the stuff of your dreams and mold them into real world works of art built from some of the hardest substances known to man. 

Get a quote!