Awesome Waterjet

Not that anyone was asking, but the Waterjet Channel just answered the question of whether you can make a transparent circular saw blade that can cut wood. After trying to cut a blade from glass, they moved on to versions made from plastic wrap, laminated glass, and Lexan. Needless to say, there’s a reason they make saw blades from steel.

At a speed of 30 MPH, a skateboard wheel spins at about 5000 RPM. The guys at the Waterjet Channel wanted to see how quickly they could get a wheel to spin under the pressure of their 60,000 PSI waterjet. After realizing that ordinary plastic wheels wouldn’t hold up, they milled their own out of aluminum.

Motorized wheels aren’t the only way to make a self-propelled skateboard. Integza shows us how he built a 3D-printed water pump to propel a skateboard. After a couple of failed attempts, he was able to get enough water flowing to move the skateboard. It seems to be more effective as a water gun than as a skateboard.

We’ve always enjoyed watching videos of wood being turned on a lathe. However, the carving part is usually done with metal tools. The guys from the Waterjet Channel wanted to see if the powerful high-pressure cutting tip of their waterjet could be used to smoothly sculpt a spinning piece of wood in the same way.

Normally, when artists make stained glass windows, they use hand tools to painstakingly cut the glass pieces. But maker Jimmy Diresta shows us how he used his Wazer desktop waterjet cutter to cleanly slice through colored glass. He then caulked the pieces into an acrylic “leading” he made with a laser cutter.

The PyroLance allows firefighters to spray water into a burning structure without having to break down doors, walls, or ceilings. It uses extremely high pressure to drill a hole into an adjacent space, then sprays a fine mist on the other side to reduce the temperature.

While we enjoy hand-carving pumpkins for Halloween, we’d be cool letting this 60,000 psi industrial waterjet cutter perform the task for us. The folks at the Waterjet Channel show how their cutter can crank out a jack-o-lantern in 30 seconds flat.