Cutting with the waterget

in order to cut my plate glass, i placed the sheet on the cutting bed with a piece of 1/4" plywood underneath it. if the glass is placed directly on the grates of the cutting bed, the glass would consistently crack at the midpoint between each of the grate's spacing (too much point load at area of impact for glass to withstand, i assume).

with the plywood, it spreads the force of impact over larger, more structural surface. the material thickness i also set for a full 1/2", despite the fact that the glass was only 1/4" thick.

the waterjet was simply set to the required power settings already specified for glass i used a dual presssure setup for the nozzle settings: i put the puncture pressure at 'low' at initial 'punch' through material, set for low pressure.

this allows the water stream to make its way through the glass without chipping the glass- this tends to be a general problem with plate glass (it chips very easily parallel to its surface).