As part of its on-going commitment to providing competitive profiles, short lead times and reliable on-time deliveries, Sheffield-based Charles Day (Steels) Ltd (www.daysteel.co.uk) is now offering round-the-clock water-jet cutting in response to increasing customer demand.

Sales manager Alan Tranter says: “We’ve seen a continued growth in demand for our water-jet cutting services. To keep up with the growing volume of orders, we have moved to increase the number of cutting hours available.”

Since installing its first water-jet machine in 2006 and its second in 2007, Charles Day has operated them both on two shifts; this is the first time it has moved to 24hr water-jet profiling, and it has invested in a new 100hp pump to power the two machines.

“The installation of the new pump has increased our capacity by 50%, meaning that we can have more heads cutting at full power at the same time. This enables us to increase our cutting speeds on a whole range of materials and thicknesses, especially thinner materials.

The general belief in manufacturing is that water-jet cutting is expensive on thicknesses below 20mm compared to other methods — namely, flame and laser.

“The power provided by the new pump means that we can increase speeds on cutting 10mm thicknesses and above, making water-jet profiling more competitive.”