PRODUCTION PROCESSES: WATERJET CUTTING
Cutting steel with water in minutes, not millenia, mystifies. People get geologic erosion by water of hard things like rock—the evidence to all but the most biblically literal is obvious. But really, water cuts thick steel plate while you wait? True. We use OmniCut, up near 60th and Broadway, to cut the flat steel shapes for our Armadillo, Penguin and Turtle tables. Of course we start with CAD files that are programmed into the cutter's computer controls. The high-pressure water stream includes a bit of suspended abrasive. The results are fast and extremely precise. These photos show the cutterhead at work and some rusty drop in the yard of the OmniCut shop.