Take one look at the Wazer Waterjet and, if you’re a builder, you’ll understand why it’s just about the best Kickstarter project ever. The Wazer gives you the capability to cut almost any material in your home shop with incredible precision. Aluminum, mild steel, stainless steel, glass, carbon fiber, ceramic tile, titanium, copper, just about anything and the cuts are smooth, finished and precise. The big guys could afford waterjets already, but now, you can afford one, too. This project had a goal of $100,000 and they made it in minutes!
The Wazer plugs into a standard 15 amp, 120 volt outlet and connects to any normal water faucet. The used water can just run into a regular drain and the abrasive is garnet, plain old crushed rock, you can toss it out in your regular trash.
You design your part in the design software of your choice, send the 2D drawing to the software that runs the Wazer, clamp your material in place, close the lid, turn it on and off you go.
This project is off the charts cool. The first early bird level sold out fast at $3599! The price is climbing as the levels sell out, but even at the eventual full retail price of $5999, it’s an incredible deal. Waterjets are one of those dream tools that guys want in their shops, but the Wazer made the dream affordable. Check it out.
Meehawl says
What’s the re-usability of that garnet I wonder? The lifespan of the nozzles and their linings is a big factor with these machines as well. I used to build HP units that were intended for North Sea offshore platforms and the nozzles had industrial sapphires to handle the abrasive effects. Even the super long radius, high quality, thick wall (around 20mm) bends off the dump valves would only last around three months before being worn out.
Having possibly sounded negative in those first few sentences, I would actually take one of these in a heartbeat if I could afford it.
Paul Crowe says
According to them, reusing abrasive can clog the machine. The cutting bed and cutting head need to be replaced over time. They are still testing to find out exactly how long these components last before replacement is necessary and will provide numbers when they have them.
Meehawl says
The cost of consumables and the service life of the most heavily utilised components will be make or break for this awesome toy I imagine. The company I worked for made more money from servicing the equipment we produced, than they did by selling or leasing it. The wear on equipment with out even any abrasive is really high when you reach water jetting pressures. The biggest gear we made was powered by 600 hp diesels with a 3 piston Woma pump attached directly off the fly wheel and could reach 46000psi, which is only at the low end range for jetting. Everything that could wear was heavily upscaled to minimise having to charter a helicopter to fly an engineer to a rig outside the service schedules and yet our service dept nearly worked as hard as us.
Moving water can make canyons grand.
Paul Crowe says
They’re currently working on sourcing the abrasives for sale in the smaller quantities users of this machine will likely be buying which will help pricing for most of the early adopters.
The pressures used by this machine are not in the same league as the machines you’re used to dealing with which will lessen that concern somewhat.
Overall, any power tool uses consumables of one sort or another. Saws go through blades, welding equipment uses gases and wire, everything uses something. The fact that they’ve dropped the price of a waterjet from six figures to four figures is a phenomenal accomplishment and should make paying for the necessary consumables a far less onerous necessity, especially when you find yourself in possession of capabilities most never expected to have in the small shop or home shop.
GenWaylaid says
To me, the retail price of $5999 is pushing the boundary of “home shop” levels. If I had a small business and could keep this machine busy at least an hour a day, I’d buy one in a heartbeat.
Paul Crowe says
Depends on the home shop, I suppose. It would fit right in next to a CNC router or some such equipment. I think guys are willing to spend far more money on some of the gear coming out now because it can do so much, with capabilities in a tool that before you couldn’t buy at any price, at least with a small footprint and no industrial sized electrical needs.
Look at it this way, some guys will spend $10K to $20K on a motorcycle because it’s their hobby and just ride it without any income resulting from that investment. For others, building things in their shop is their hobby, so why not spend that same money on a tool or two or three? Especially when the tool might generate some or maybe a lot of income. Guys already do that with CNC routers, 3D printers, laser cutters and more. They let it be known they’ll do work for others and they get on a list of small fab shops in your area you can contact with a job. So maybe this is your chance to buy one of these. You can thank me later. 🙂
GenWaylaid says
I can’t even afford a place with a garage. When I’m no longer rebuilding engines on the kitchen floor, then we’ll talk home fabrication shop.
JH says
The average cost of a “small” waterjet from an established manufacturer is easily 25,000 base price and goes up from there. Typical prices are 50-150k.
JH says
According to my relatives who work in the machining business, waterjets and cnc mills specifically. The biggest repair item is inevitably the pump, it fails after so many hours of operation and is typically the most expensive portion of the construct.
John Nagle says
I’d like to see some videos of this thing that aren’t sped up. Reportedly the cutting speed is really slow. This may mean more garnet use per cut than with the bigger machines. The real question about the Wazer is operating cost. If it goes through nozzles and pump components fast, it’s not going to be cost-effective.
It’s nice to see a little one, but more info is needed.
Wave says
There is actually a really good list showing cutting speeds and garnet consumption on their Kickstarter page. They claim that the aluminium belt sprocket shown in this article took 168 minutes and 55lb of garnet to cut. Assuming that you buy it in bags, that’s a whole bag! You’re going to need to buy garnet by the pallet even for occasional use of this thing. Since they recommend not to reuse the abrasive, that’s also a lot of waste generated for one small part.
Ryan d Leikness says
Good start for a hobby person or a start up shop, but the consumables aren’t that attractive ? But all and all this thing could work for small guys for prototyping sales? I’d try it and run the heck out of it ! Not having a big budget for hobby tools if it could potentially make me money why not