In this article we will take a look at the history of one fascinating modern tool – the water jet cutter. The process of cutting hard materials with the life giving liquid is used in various industries such as aerospace, mining and all kinds of vehicle manufacturing. So when did it all start?

Some might say that we could trace the idea of water cutting back to the mid-1800s. At that time miners used high-pressure water to erode rock materials while mining gold. With time that idea kept evolving and in the 1930s the first narrow jets of water appeared in industrial work. One of the earliest documented such cutting machines was developed in 1933 by the Paper Patents Company in Wisconsin. As you might have guessed it was used for cutting paper. Most early tools used lower pressure and were ideal for soft materials only.

As time went the materials that could be cut became harder. In 1958 the first system for cutting hard materials was developed. It used ultra-high-pressure to cut strong alloys such as stainless steel. And we mean high pressure. This version of the cutter used a 100,000 psi pump to deliver a hypersonic liquid jet. For comparison the psi at the Mariana Trench is around 15,750 psi. But these versions of the waterjet cutter weren’t quite the modern tool we know today.

Very early on it was found out that adding an abrasive to the waterjet made it possible to cut not only soft materials but basically everything. So people started perfecting the process. In 1982 the first publications on the modern Abrasive Water Jets were published by Dr. Mohamed Hashish. Then in 1987 he patented the concept of the tool most industries use today.

With the advancement of technology the process has been perfected by computer systems for precision control. Modern water jet cutters can maintain accuracy down to 0.13 mm making them irreplaceable in modern day manufacturing.

My Euro Steel’s  WaterJet capacity allows cuts with the following dimensions 2000x3000mm with thickness up to 100mm.