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Water Jet Tutorial-1
Water Jet Tutorial-1
TechShop Pittsburgh.
There’s quite a bit of software and artwork setup to walk through before getting to the coolest
part…. cutting through metal!
Overview:
There are 3 major steps: Design, Tool-Pathing your design and Using the Water Jet to cut your
artwork file.
It’s worth it once you’re able to hold your shiny freshly cut metal form in hand!
Step 1: Create Artwork File In A Vector Program (in this case Illustrator)
● Create your file width and height to match the area of metal you plan on cutting
● save your file (and save often)
Step 2: Create Your Artwork
● I want my final large keystone pendants to be .5”w x .5”l. The cut from the water jet takes
up about .025” space. So, to account for all four sides I’ve scaled my artwork up slightly
to .55”wx .55”l. I’ve also made sure to leave about .1” between the shapes.
(there’s a way to nest these more efficiently later on in the process. It’s still good practice to set
up artwork in the simplest way possible.)
● Once artwork is in place save the file.
● Save as an .ai file to be opened next in VCarve Pro
Step 3: Open in VCarve Pro (technically VCarve isn’t necessary, but I’ve personally found that it
greatly helps reduce foibles that occur in vector artwork moving between Illustrator to FlowPath.)
● First, choose the white selection arrow (tool names appear upon hover)
● Click & drag to select the entire artboard. The artwork will highlight in pink.
● Then choose the Join Open Vectors icon This ensures that there are no open gaps
in your artwork.
● When the gaps are closed a side menu will appear and will provide the number of joints
altogether and how many are open or closed.
Step 4: Fit Curves Along Vectors
● The final software that the Water Jet runs on is not very good at cutting rounded bezier
curves. This artwork doesn’t necessarily have rounded bezier curves, but it still helps to
● Once again, choose the white selector arrow and highlight all artwork on the artboard
● Click on the yellow selector arrow from the top menu and click and drag to select
your entire artwork. It will highlight in red to indicate it’s selected.
● Then select the Move tool from the tool bar menu on the right , now drag your
artwork onto the grid and click once to place it there.
● Every box on the grid represents a 2” x 2” space. You can also look at the X and Y
coordinates in order to gauge relative space and distance
Step 7: Select your cutting speed and turning on snaps
● Once again click on the yellow selector arrow and highlight your artwork area
● Pick between the cut speeds at the bottom. Since I’ll be cutting 18 gauge brass, a faster
● While your artwork is selected you’ll want to turn on Snap Nearest . This will help
streamline your points to snap to the nearest grid within a few pixels for lead in’s and
lead out’s.
● Setting a “Lead In” means dictating where a cut will start. Setting a “Lead Out” dictates
where a cut will end. Lead In’s and Out’s must be drawn in order for anything to be cut.
Step 8: examine and purge your artwork
● From the top menu, navigate to “Draw” and select “Tab Properties” from the drop down
menu.
● You’ll want to change the width and length to a minimum of .05 or else the tab will be too
small to hold your partially cut shape in place
● Next select the Draw Tabs Icon from the left menu
● Hover over your artwork and you’ll see a black and pink line to indicate which line to add
your tab. You MUST make sure your tab is facing outside the artwork/shape area
● It’s best to also try to have your tab facing away from a cut line and on a straight path. If
a tab gets too close to the edge or another cut line the cut shape can fall through the
water jet bed grate and will be lost
step 10: Autopath and exporting to FlowCut
● Use the yellow arrow to select all your artwork and click on the AutoPath icon in the right
side menu
● The AuthPath tool will draw your Lead In’s and Lead Out’s to tell the Water Jet machine
the most efficient way and direction to cut out your shapes
● There is a manual way of doing this and there is a great instructables here if you’d like to
try it:
http://www.instructables.com/id/FlowJet-Series-Part-5-Manual-Pathing-in-FlowPath/?ALL
STEPS
● It’s OK with the arrows go off the grid. Generally, if you saw a lot of small red arrows
concentrated in a certain area (smaller than the ones pictures here) then it may be
problematic. Since we used VCarve to turn our vector paths into arcs and close gaps our
artwork should AutoPath OK.
● Save your file
● Then export your path as an .ord file (to be read by FlowCut and the Water Jet Machine)
from the file menu.
step 11: Setting your materials and cutting speed in Flow Cut
● Your file should pretty similar to FlowPath - sitting in the same area of the grid with the
authpath arrows present
● Looking at the right side bar menu, you’ll want to adjust your Thickness, Materials (or
Machinability) and Pierce Time
● I’m cutting 16 gauge brass sheet metal which has a .05” thickness so that what I’ll enter
in the “Thickness” field
● For your Materials (Machinability), pick the closest materials from the dropdown menu
you can find. In this case, “Brass half-hard” is chosen.
● Your tool radius and scale can most likely stay at the default setting pictured here.
● Last thing you’ll want to adjust is “Pierce Time” which I’ll set at .15 sec based on my
class at TechShop
● When you open your file in FlowCut, first double check all your materials/speed/
thickness settings are the same. Then hit the “run machine” button to
Home the nozzle.
● You’ll then have to move the nozzle on the waterjet to line up over your material area
(“homing”).
● Once you’ve aligned the nozzle X and Y paths, hit the home button and choose “Set
Current Position As Home”
● Using the arrow keys on the computer keyboard you can trace the perimeter of your
artwork and look in FlowCut to see if the outlined path matches with your physical path
traveled by the waterjet nozzle. If you need to readjust you can always reset your home
position.
● When everything is in place you’ll then turn on the pump, check your gauges and let the
machine run!