Photo Courtesy of OMAX Corporation

OMAX MODEL 55100 JET MACHINING CENTER

Valley Precision is proud to announce we operate the
OMAX 55100 Hydro Abrasive "Water Jet Machining Center."

FROM THIN SHIM STOCK TO THICK PLATE

Valley has never liked our industries use of big CNC Punch presses, punching metal with large tunnage piercing dies. This crude process induces unwanted stress to the fabricated component. If these stresses are left in an airframe component, stress cracks will begin to appear after an extended period of time as the pre-loaded, prestressed material work hardens. Stress Relieving these fabricated components at a Certified Heat Treat Facility has been the only way to remove these unwanted stresses. Over the years, our industry has tried to mitigate this stress induced process by holding the immediate area around the die with extreme pressure during the piercing stroke. While this procedure helps to control these undue stresses, it has only reduced, not eliminated these unwanted stresses.

High Speed Lasers are excellent tools in that they fabricate without piercing, however Precision Lasers only work well on thin metals and they actually burn the material as they cut. This causes local hardening at these fabricated edges which can also cause fracturing. By inducing extreme heat in localized areas, Lasers create a variety of tempers in the same material. With High Temperature Metals such as Titanium, Burning the edges cause "Alpha Case", or Hydrogen Im-brittlement at the burned areas if not removed by chemical etching or other means.

OMAX, is the industry leader in Precision Hydro Abrasive,"Water Jet" Systems. This new "Cool Cutting" science produces precision fabricated flight components without inducing the stresses associated with existing conventional manufacturing techniques.

In addition to fabrication of details, Thick tooling up to several inches thick is not a problem with an Omax Water Jet. We can even fabricate thin metals from .005 thick efficiently and maintain flatness.