In starting their environmentally-friendly business, Mark Meadwell and Danuta Rosinska took the calculated risk of building their business on one abrasive-waterjet machine. They did so believing the technology offered better service to diverse markets compared to conventional machining. The risk paid off. Accurate Waterjet Cutting Services now has enough work to keep its abrasive-waterjet busy every single day.
"We saw the opportunity to meet the demand for a way of cutting material without hurting the environment—as other technologies such as Plasma and Laser cutting do, by giving off harmful emissions. We also saw the potential for profit without much competition in the Vaughan area," explains company founder Mark Meadwell.
"The bulk of GTA companies with waterjet capability use them to create their own products. Not many offer abrasive-waterjet services in the marketplace." The technically-inclined should know that the Vaughan-based shop employs a Hammerhead 126, with an accuracy of motion of ±0.003 in. and ±0.002 in. for 1 ft of travel. Repeatability is ±0.0013 in., squareness is 0.0013 in./ft, and straightness is 0.0017 in./ft. It cuts sheet material measuring between 8 and 12-ft long and with thicknesses of up to 8in., with dual cutting heads allowing its machine to cut two parts at once; it also offers mirroring capabilities ideal for large prototype parts and includes production parts cut out of whole 8, 10 or 12-ft-long sheets.
"Our approach is to look for and accept jobs cutting anything and everything," says Meadwell. "Abrasive waterjet systems let us do that, not only in different materials, but also for different types of runs." Meadwell gained knowledge of waterjet machines over eight years doing sales specifically with waterjet profile cutting. I was evolved in the competitive steel industry supplying sheet, slit coil and flat bar prior to Waterjet and have a lot of contacts that can use the new means of cutting with water. Its benefits appeal to fabricators in many ways. Its a cold cutting process, it does not warp material with heat, and it does not change the chemistry of the metal like ambient cutting. The finish is clean and smooth so no extra cleaning of the cut edges is required. Most laser machine are not capable of cutting metal thicker then 1.00. Our machine can cut up to 6 thick steel.
With its state-of-the-art waterjet machine, the shop gets business from the aerospace industry, the military, tool-and-die shops, sign shops, countertop houses, automotive shops, fiber optics companies, and numerous other businesses. The bulk of its jobs involve both rough and finish cutting of materials from granite to stainless steel, as well as custom parts, and shims and strippers for die shops. To save hundreds of hours of production time, the shop cuts multiple shims simultaneously from welded or bolted-together stacks of the material. For stripper plates, the shop beats the competition with quick job turnarounds. "Today's waterjet machines are 15 percent faster than they were a few years ago, and getting faster," says Meadwell. This speed makes them the perfect machine for cutting stripper plates. If a die shop has wire-EDM machines, it most likely sets them up to run stripper plates overnight.
This is fine, says Meadwell, as long as the business is slow. When things get busy, though, most die shops realize that it's not cost effective to run strippers on wire EDMs. In such situations, waterjet cutting actually complements wire EDMing. Wire EDMs are precision machines, and cutting stripper plates with 0.15 to 0.30 in. of clearance per side isn't necessarily the most productive use of these systems. Waterjet machines, on the other hand, says Meadwell, are 10 faster than wire EDMs, just not as accurate. Software performs all the necessary calculations for the head and also squares the Z axis, making sure it's exactly perpendicular if it gets jarred. It does so in fifteen seconds and with the touch of a button.
Accurate Waterjet Cutting Services has strategically positioned itself in the geographic core of the stone and tile suppliers in Vaughan, to assist them with any challenging cutting needs like producing custom floor medallions, cutting radiuses or designs into stone or tiles, or any intricate type cutting, such as stone inlays of logos or other designs into floors with typical grout compensations.
