W16: Wildcard Week: Waterjet cutting

In the wildcard week I wanted to experiment with cutting harder materials, like stainless steel. Fortunately the FabLab had just acquiered a Wazer desktop waterjet cutter, so I thought I'd give that a try.

The idea

An electric guitar pickguard is typically made out of layered plastic, and serves as support for electonics, to protect a guitar's body paintjob and wood and to give the guitar some personality. Here's a classic Fender Stratocaster with a white pickguard:

I thought I could make myself a Strat pickguard stencil that I could later use as a template with softer materials or even paper blueprints.

The design

I went for a stock pickguard for single coils, with no modifications. This would be easy to find and trace and would be useful in many models.

The Wazer only takes DXF files, so I had to go through AutoCAD. Oddly enough, AtuoCAD drew some very rough curves (see circles for holes), and I had to "soften" them again within the software:

Preparing the stock

I would be using 1mm thick stainless steel cut from a long sheet.

The sheet covers all the cutting area in the Wazer

Fixing the stock to the bed with screws surrounding the stock.

The Wazer comes with a piece of plastic to zero-in on Z-axis:

Finally, check there's enough abrasive loaded:

Configuring the Wazer for cutting

I have to say the Wazer's software is fairly basic and stripped-down, compared to what I've experienced in CCM.

Once the file is imported through the web interface, the first thing to do is to position it on the bed. Since I put a stock that covers the whole bed, this wasn't much of an issue. I found it surprising though that there seems to be no option to zero the head on the x or y axis, and all that's left for smaller parts is the grid that matches the bed, represented by white lines.

Next, the Wazer asks for the material. In this cases 1mm stainless steel:

There's an option to choose the cutting path. For my purposes, straight on top on the line was fine.

The software allows for automatic or manual tab placement. I ended up not using tabs after all, as they seemed too complicated to remove from such a hard stock.

Finally, thw Wazer allows for different cutting quality levels. I went with fine as the estimated job time difference wasn't that much.

Cutting the piece

As it's often the case, I had to go at it several times to finish the piece, as there's always something that comes up.

Running out of abrasive

The first run was going alright, but eventually the Wazer ran out of abrasive. I'm surprised it didn't stop this time around, as this happened again in another run and I had the chance to fill it in. In this case, however, it continued to cut without actually cutting, so I ended up cancelling the process mid way.

In that image I also saw the tab size compared to a hole, and that's why I ended up removing them from the cutting process, especially with the regards to the holes.

Misplacing the stock

For the following run I tried to cut a smaller stock and eyeball its position based on the cut marks and the grid on the bed. The image speaks for itself :D