[D.Fahringer]

We have two waterjet machines at NASA Langley, one is 2' X 4' capacity and the other is a 4' X 8' machine. The diameter of the jet stream and resulting minimum corner radius is .020" (when machine is properly maintained). So if you can live with that much radius for accepable clearance in your gear design you are o.k. with a waterjet...something the size of that small gear on the drill motor...forget it.

As for the "funneling" that will angle the sides, we have an articulating head on the big waterjet that completely eliminates that! The machines internal software looks ahead at the part geometry and compensates for stream cone/funneling and lag. So if you send this work out you can specify that type of machine. Ours is a Flow Bengal 4X8.

I have used gears made of 3/8 inch aluminum plate that were waterjetted on the older machine and the fit was great as long as you reverse one so the angled sides compliment one another! (Relativley low rpm use)

The maintainence issue stems from the orifice that the high pressure water (50,000 PSI) and abrasive sand passes through, it is made of ruby but will wear over time and the stream diameter gets larger.