Cutting Rubber, Foam & Plastics with Water Jet Cutters
Efficient production from small to large series for soft materials cutting
When cutting soft materials like rubber, plastics, insulation and foam, there is no need for abrasives with a water jet cutter. For soft materials like these, the pure water jet cutting process (PWJ) provides a strong alternative to the traditional cutting methods of shearing, die cutting or hot wire cutting.
When it comes to soft materials, water jet cutting brings benefits for both small and large-scale production. Firstly, there is no need for punching tools and secondly PWJ cuts rapidly with very narrow cuts of 0.1 mm which means that with simple CNC programming you can produce one single part quickly. In addition, with a beam you can mount a large number of parallel cutting heads, thus cutting very large volumes simultaneously.
In the seal and gasket industry there is no other manufacturing solution that offers comparable benefits for prototypes, small and medium series in terms of average quality, versatility and efficiency. Due primarily to the high degree of automation involved, waterjet cutting is proving to be the ideal production technology solution for batch sizes of up to of 500 items. Not only is there no need for the elaborate creation, modification, maintenance and storage of conventional dies, there is no need to assemble them either.
Benefits
- Ability to use Common Cut Lines - Minimal Kerf allows Multiple Shapes on a Sheet to be Cut with Shared Edges to Save Production time and Material
- Ability to Stack Material - No Compression of Material as Less Difference in Cut Top to Bottom compared to Other Methods like Die Cutting
- Quick and Easy Prototyping - No Need for Expensive Dies, Complex Methods or Machine Changes
- Flexible Tooling System - Achieve Complex Cuts Without the Need for Dies or Added Tooling Costs
- Does Not Affect Intrinsic Properties of the Material - No Heat Affected Zone(HAZ) commonly found in Hot Wire Cutting.
- Raw Material Savings - Reduced Scrap
- No Worrying Smoke or Vapours given off
Industries
- Manufacturers of Sealing Materials
- Gasket Manufacturers
- Carry Cases for Delicate Instruments
- Cameras
- Guns
- Power stations
- Scientific Equipment
- Large Industrial Plants where replacement parts can be manufactured there and then, on site
Rubber/Foam/Plastics Cutting Applications
- Blanks, One-offs, Small and Medium Series
- Prototypes
