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We had a waterjet at the granite shop we worked at for cutting stone slabs. Even after years of working there, I'd still just sit and stare at it sometimes fasc

We had a waterjet at the granite shop we worked at for cutting stone slabs. Even after years of working there, I'd still just sit and stare at it sometimes fascinated. That thing was always a hassle with maintenance though and sometimes things on the intensifier would explode.... Programming it was pretty cool. Different than the routers I programmed. We had a camera system rigged up that could take photos of the slab. The cad files were then loaded in and dropped and arranged on the stone. The guy that did it at our shop was really good at matching everything. Connecting the veins for pieces that needed to be joined or mitered.

ortusdux 6y ago
A friend operates one at a granite shop. They use a software that maps the surface and then uploads it to a webapp that lets the customer choose the pattern layout. One thing I found interesting about water jets is that you absolutely do not want to be cut by one. The force is strong enough that it can inject the abrasive garnet into your bloodstream. The machine I actually came with instructional tags to pin to the shirt of anyone headed to the ER.
- grawprog 6y ago
  >A friend operates one at a granite shop. They use a software that maps the surface and then uploads it to a webapp that lets the customer choose the pattern layout. That would have been pretty cool. One of the biggest holdups to our schedule used to be waiting for customers to confirm layouts before cutting. They always come into the shop to verify. We used old unsupported software called stonecam from Park Industries. Only one guy still working there had any experience with the software. We ended up having to recalibrate the camera on the machine while I was there. It involved manually configuring variables in text files with variable names written in a mix of German and English. Apparently the software was written by one German guy who vanished some time ago who never told anyone else how it all worked completely. They'd switched to officially supporting AlphaCam a while ago. We had licenses for our two routers for alpha cam but they were ten grand a piece and the boss was holding out as long as possible before switching the waterjet over. >The force is strong enough that it can inject the abrasive garnet into your bloodstream Oh wow had no idea about that. I figured you absolutely did not want to get your body into the flow, but never heard that.

ortusdux 6y ago

A friend operates one at a granite shop. They use a software that maps the surface and then uploads it to a webapp that lets the customer choose the pattern layout. One thing I found interesting about water jets is that you absolutely do not want to be cut by one. The force is strong enough that it can inject the abrasive garnet into your bloodstream. The machine I actually came with instructional tags to pin to the shirt of anyone headed to the ER.

grawprog 6y ago
>A friend operates one at a granite shop. They use a software that maps the surface and then uploads it to a webapp that lets the customer choose the pattern layout. That would have been pretty cool. One of the biggest holdups to our schedule used to be waiting for customers to confirm layouts before cutting. They always come into the shop to verify. We used old unsupported software called stonecam from Park Industries. Only one guy still working there had any experience with the software. We ended up having to recalibrate the camera on the machine while I was there. It involved manually configuring variables in text files with variable names written in a mix of German and English. Apparently the software was written by one German guy who vanished some time ago who never told anyone else how it all worked completely. They'd switched to officially supporting AlphaCam a while ago. We had licenses for our two routers for alpha cam but they were ten grand a piece and the boss was holding out as long as possible before switching the waterjet over. >The force is strong enough that it can inject the abrasive garnet into your bloodstream Oh wow had no idea about that. I figured you absolutely did not want to get your body into the flow, but never heard that.