At WAZER we continuously explore ways to use our water jets beyond simply cutting parts out of raw materials. One application is modifying existing parts or adding new features that require precise, repeatable positioning. By combining a custom fixture with the Wazer Pro locating jig, parts can be consistently aligned for cutting. This ensures accurate registration between the programmed toolpath and the physical part, enabling precise feature placement and minimizing variation between cuts. 

Trimming the Glass Eyes with Wazer Pro

An interesting real-world application involved molded glass pieces with two integrated eyes intended for taxidermy projects. The eyes are typically extracted using a core drill and then ground from a circular profile into an oval shape. This is a labor intensive process and it can be brutal towards manual tools. The goal was to determine a more production focused approach that involved using the water jet as a “trimming” machine that could accurately locate the eyes on the molded piece and extract them without the need for post-processing. 

Now here is the interesting part about these molded pieces. The edges of the glass part were very inconsistent and irregular which meant that we could not simply align the edges with the corner of the locating jig on Wazer Pro. The only consistent features of these parts were the eye sizes and the location relative to each other. We were also dealing with a 3D part since the eyes were molded into well… eye balls so this part could not sit flat on the cutting bed.

This introduced two challenges: accurately locating the cutting path for each eye, and securely fixturing the part to ensure stability during cutting. 

Creating the fixture

The whole point of the fixture is to be able to repeatedly locate the part based on the eyes which is the only consistent and now critical geometry of these molded parts. The fixture would then be able to sit flush with the locating jig of Wazer Pro. 

Using the drawing of the actual glass mold used for these eyes, a rectangular fixture was created. 

The thought process behind this fixture was that it would be cut from plastic, roughly 0.5”, and would accommodate the eyes. The outer geometry of this fixture would be rectangular, referencing the dimensions of the mold itself and the eye cutouts would be big enough to accommodate the size of the kerf as it travels around them to cut them out. Additionally, from the first cut test, it was determined that this specific glass cracked when the water jet pierced directly on the material. Therefore to avoid cracking, the plan was to lead into the cut. The final fixture had “channels” for the kerf to travel through and cut the glass eyes. 

A CAD mockup of the fixture was created to visualise the setup. 

Before water jetting the final fixture, foam was used as a test material to verify the offsets and kerf allowances for the cut path. This varied from the final version since we were looking to just verify the spacing of the eyes. Additionally, because the eyeballs faced downwards against the cut bed, they were covered with electrical tape to prevent surface damage during the cutting process.

Final fixture

The final fixture was cut out of 0.5” HDPE on Wazer Pro so that the thickness of the material would be enough to house the eye balls.

Locating Jig

Wazer Pro comes with threaded posts in the tank. It also includes 4 mm thick machined aluminum plates that allow users to create their own locating jigs for their applications. By default, the welcome file has a jig with corner coordinates at X: 3 mm, Y: 3 mm. The customized jig we made had corner coordinates at X: 0.5”, Y: 0.5”.

WAM setup

To align the cut file to the fixture, the two files were imported, positioned within the jig and overlapped to better visualize what the cuts will look like. Ultimately, the final cut file for the eyes would be just the file with the lead ins:

The setup for cutting the fixture did not need a specific setup as it was cut from a plain sheet of 0.5” HDPE. 

The cut file for the eyes was created with its own lead-ins based off of the fixture.This gave us more control over the lead in location in relation to the custom fixture. Since these profiles are open, WAM is not able to automatically offset the kerf therefore it was considered during the CAD file creation. In the CAD file, a point was added so that the cut extent was referenced closer to the fixture 

Final cut process on Wazer Pro

In preparation for the cutting process, the glass was mounted on the fixture using hot glue to secure it in place. 

The assembly of the fixture with the glass was then mounted into the cut bed right at the corner of the locating jig and screws were used to secure it onto the Wazer Pro cut bed. 

The cut file was run successfully removing the eyes from the scrap glass.

Final results