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Water jet cutting of ceramic material

doug8cat

Titanium
Joined
Jul 10, 2008
Location
Philadelphia
I very little expience with water jets, my question is this. Is it possible to cut tempered glass with a water jet ? Glass has a ceramic like molecular structure, so un tempered would probably be no problem, but there are better faster ways to cut that. Tempered is different cause the tension between the molecules has been altered naking the stresses with in uniform.
I'd plop a piece downand and try it but I don't have a water jet yet. No specific project more part of an idea froming in my head the crux of which would involve water jetting tempered glass.
 
Nope i don't think you can cut it, any crack formed however small only has to hit one of the stresses and the pane will go, its the balanced stresses and no cracks to propagate that stop it from exploding there and then. There's a lot of built up energy - tension in a sheet of tempered glass.

Laminated is a lot better option and can be cut with none of the agro - pile of little pieces! if the job will allow. Alternatively cut it and temper after. So long as its a simple shape, they can post temper it. Just realise there going to lose the odd one now and then.
 
My coworker used to work for a company that specialized in cutting large pieces of glass. Apparently they had some sort of CNC scoring machine and then would snap it to shape by hand. That is probably the best way of doing it.
 
Philmeik yes that would be an optimiser or at least tha is what they called them when they first came out. You had to tell the computer (pre-P.C. days) how big the sheet was and what you wanted cut from it and it would calculated (while you got a cup of coffee drank it, and chatted up a secretary) then took the paper tape out to the machine and it would cut. Problem being it was not capable of anything other than straight lines. Now have been away from the feild for a few years and tech moves pretty fast, but using a concention wheel type cutter is much cheaper than water jet for straight lines, now cutting out pockets and places for hardware like in a totally glass door as in banks then it would handy. As it stands now those cuts need to made before tempering and it would be a money saver to be able to cut after the temper cause there is always some breakage in the oven. A good furnace set up and operator keeps the breakage to a very low %.

Adama you obviously now a good bit about glass and the tempering process, and your points make good sense, I did not think of it the way you did, and your opions make good sense. I'm just toying with an idea and value the contribution.
 
Should add i never got to play with a water jet, but it was a request to modify tempered pre cut items like your trying to deal with the made me look into it. In the end we concluded it was the wrong way to go. The customer changed how the part was cut, using a much faster hush hush secret we discovered by accident along the way :-) Then simply found someone else to post temper it. Like you say, a good oven + tempering set-up won't lose much, but its a expense you don't need and in what we were messing with was actually the greatest per part cost that could just be saved that seamed in easy reach. Turned out what they lose in tempering ain't worth chasing. Far better to come up with a slicker method of making the part! What's more we really cut the loses in making the part and was making them magnitudes quicker.

All i can really say is glass machines nothing like you would expect it too, and can be a lot tougher than you think.
 
Adama absolutly, that is the thing that has drawn me to it, first learning to make stained glass windows the old way from 3rd generation Irish "glass smith ? ?". Draw the patteren in duplicate cut one print apart lay the second down on plywood. Take the pieces of the cut up pattern use them to hold down on the selected piece of glass then cut the glass around the paper while holding it down to the glass, break it out down the score lines, with hands or nippers the older guy who taught me wouldn't even let me grind a piece that was little off I had to fit the original way. Then lay it on the plywood place lead came around it, nail to hold in place, rinse and repeat till window is done, finally solder all came junctions on one side flip and do it again. Quick and dirty discription, but yhea it is hard many ways and very weak in others. Just as a example you can't cut a piece that is less wide than the glass is thick. Then got involved with the tempering biz through my father who was the guy who oversaw the construction, installation, setup, and training of folks who purchased the oven.
But I would love to know just for academic reasons the hush hush way I'm dying here, I've been involved with glass in one aspect or another since I was 14. I know there are probably proprietary reasons you cannot say but you could always kill me after telling me LOL. I'm not activley involved with the business anymore anyway so what harm ? Maybe I could a trade you one of trade secrets I know about tempering :D;). Thanks for the reply I will be racking my brain about what you did for next few months, you have piqued my interest I might even have to ask around to find a buddy with a water jet I could experiment with. I guess it is true my late father who was a tempering guru, always said the family has glass dust in the blood........he was right.
Maybe it is just a matter of time till I cash in machining and scrape together the $750k -$1.2 mil and buy my own tempering oven !!!
 
In my first waterjet operator job, we cut a lot of glass. We would always ask if it was tempered and refuse if they said it was. Some customers would try to sneak some in on us and it would end up *all* over the shop. I have never heard of tempered glass being successfully cut by any method.
 
The only way we have cut it when its sandwiched with epoxy and polycarbonate. Using a waterjet would be a collosal waste of money. Your better off scoring it with a tool using a glass cutting CNC then snapping it out of the stock.
 








 
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