Meadow Creature LLC
Meadow Creature LLC
Meadow Creature LLC provides custom abrasive waterjet machining using our OMAX/Maxiem 1515 CNC abrasivejet machining center located in our shop on Vashon Island, WA. Our specialty is architectural and art fabrication, providing the personal service and great attention to detail required when working with art materials, in particular unique and expensive materials where the job simply has to happen correctly the first time. In addition to the usual metals, we work with stone, wood, glass, ceramic, plastic and anything else that can be cut safely.
Our bread-and-butter is precision cutting of steel, aluminum and stainless steel for short production runs and prototypes. Waterjet is particularly cost-effective for short runs because revisions are easy and there is no tooling cost. While there's nothing special about cutting ordinary metals, we do offer an uncommon level of service and attention to detail, including custom fixture design and fabrication for jobs that ordinary workholding cannot accommodate.
Our machine's work envelope is 62" square. The catch tank can accommodate a workpiece up to 65" x 86".
Our machine is one of the first delivered of OMAX's new Maxiem line. While it can cut anything that OMAX's other machines cut, ours is particularly well-suited to cost-effective cutting of sheet metal, stone and glass.
Meadow Creature LLC also offers limited manual machining, TIG welding and metal fabrication services.
We work from whatever type of artwork best suits you - it's purely a trade-off of cost and convenience. You can email DXF or AI (Adobe Illustrator) files, scans of paper drawings or photographs, or physically mail paper drawings, full-size or scale templates, or actual sample parts.
Please email a drawing or photo, and indicate your material type, thickness and other needs, for a prompt quote. We can provide mild and stainless steel in common sheet and plate thicknesses from stock at better than retail pricing. For other material, we can obtain what we need, or you can drop-ship it to our location.
Waterjet cutting cost in general involves a one-time fee for artwork preparation, a per-job setup fee, and an actual cutting charge that can be quoted per part or per job as best suits your needs. We prefer to quote each job. While it can be counterproductive to generalize, if you simply have to figure your own ballpark cost before contacting us, we provide the following rough rules of thumb. Many of our small jobs involve an artwork and setup fee of $75 to $100, and a cutting cost of approximately $1 per linear foot for 14ga mild or stainless steel. Cut cost to a large degree is directly proportional to material thickness and hardness, with 1/4" steel plate at about $3 per foot for the equivalent artwork. For a given thickness, aluminum is about half the steel cost, and stone about half the aluminum cost. Cut cost also varies over about a 3X range based on desired edge quality, with these rough figures about 1/3 of the way up the quality scale. Finally, cut cost varies over about an additional 3X based on the artwork complexity, with straight lines and filleted corners costing less, and sharp corners and tight radii costing more.
Please contact us at 360-329-2250 or email sales@meadowcreature.com
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