Ever wondered?

[M0nkey_Man]

[Hoffman]

Puzzled Raptor needs to learn the definition of a "Hard" Material.  It isn't unbreakable, simple Iron will crush a diamond.  However, a Diamond is so hard that nothing but another diamond will scratch it.  It will scratch any other natural material out there.  This makes it very valuable for cutting as it can create scratches that allow other materials to break through something alot easier than without the diamond.  Hence why there are diamond bladed saws.  The blade itself is iron/steel, it has just been coated with a fine diamond cutting edge, much like sandpaper.  This scratches and scores the surface which the body of the saw then pushes apart.

But the most powerful cutters use electricity (To melt the material in a very small area, really cool to watch.) or extreme, and I do mean extreme, water pressure.  Like... something on the order of 10,000 PSI+ or so over a surface area only millimeters wide.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Puzzled Raptor needs to learn the definition of a "Hard" Material.  It isn't unbreakable, simple Iron will crush a diamond.  However, a Diamond is so hard that nothing but another diamond will scratch it.  It will scratch any other natural material out there.  This makes it very valuable for cutting as it can create scratches that allow other materials to break through something alot easier than without the diamond.  Hence why there are diamond bladed saws.  The blade itself is iron/steel, it has just been coated with a fine diamond cutting edge, much like sandpaper.  This scratches and scores the surface which the body of the saw then pushes apart.

But the most powerful cutters use electricity (To melt the material in a very small area, really cool to watch.) or extreme, and I do mean extreme, water pressure.  Like... something on the order of 10,000 PSI+ or so over a surface area only millimeters wide.

Jewelry diamonds are grinded into shiny facettes. I've always wondered wth you use in order to grind a diamond. Must be a chore.

[Pigslilspaz]

Puzzled Raptor needs to learn the definition of a "Hard" Material.

-Cough- Philosoraptor -Cough-

[Shuffler]

Puzzled Raptor needs to learn the definition of a "Hard" Material.  It isn't unbreakable, simple Iron will crush a diamond.  However, a Diamond is so hard that nothing but another diamond will scratch it.  It will scratch any other natural material out there.  This makes it very valuable for cutting as it can create scratches that allow other materials to break through something alot easier than without the diamond.  Hence why there are diamond bladed saws.  The blade itself is iron/steel, it has just been coated with a fine diamond cutting edge, much like sandpaper.  This scratches and scores the surface which the body of the saw then pushes apart.

But the most powerful cutters use electricity (To melt the material in a very small area, really cool to watch.) or extreme, and I do mean extreme, water pressure.  Like... something on the order of 10,000 PSI+ or so over a surface area only millimeters wide.

Laser

[jeep00]

Laser

I have heard a lot of good stuff about the plasma cutters made locally to me at Hypertherm. They sound pretty damn powerful, but I've no experience with them.

-Cough- Philosoraptor -Cough-

This one will have me laughing for some time. 

Bob

[Shuffler]

I have heard a lot of good stuff about the plasma cutters made locally to me at Hypertherm. They sound pretty damn powerful, but I've no experience with them.

This one will have me laughing for some time. 

Bob

Laser beats plasma hands down. Plasma is fine for 1 1/2" on up in thickness.

We have a 6kilowatt Trumpf laser.

[Devil 505]

-Cough- Philosoraptor -Cough-

[Hoffman]

-Cough- Philosoraptor -Cough-

A real philosoraptor wouldn't have to think about this question.  He'd simply look it up.  Thus, he is a puzzled raptor.

[Babalonian]

Jewelry diamonds are grinded into shiny facettes. I've always wondered wth you use in order to grind a diamond. Must be a chore.

Other diamonds actually, typicaly on a belt-style grinder (think sand paper, except diamond paper).  All that diamond (saw) dust/shavings is a highly valuable biproduct saught by everyone from other diamond cutters, saw blade manufacturers, and R&D firms for aerospace, electronics and other things (many companies are experimenting using real diamonds/dust in manufactured crystals, they are after-all the hardest thing we know of. 

Also, the greatest scientific discovery lately in this field is that crystals can be programmed (molecularly manipulated and arragned), so R&D is huge in that field right now, using manufactured and natural crystals (and since they're doing it at the molecular level, the smaller cheaper bits of natural diamonds is ideal).  In layman's terms:  Think of a VCR casette, all that magneticly-sensitive tape inside of it is programable.  It gets run over a magnetic head that can read and/or write to the material.  Problem is with magnetic tape, it deteriorates (looses its programming) considerabley over time.  It held up better than vinyl-grooves threaded under an acoustic needle (average lifetime of 1-year play-life), and magnetic tape could store/provide more data/sound per second than physical vinyl (average 10-year play-life), but eventualy lazer/optical compact-discs (CDs) buried magnetic tape (estimated lifetime of 100-200 years).  Diamonds/crystals... last forever.  If some lucky company cracks it, likely sooner than eventually - our grandkids will be doing science-class time-capsuls, with data/music/movies/messages inside stored on crystal media, with the intent that some other kids will dig it up in 2k, 20-k, 2,000-k years and discover what they wanted to share.  Even more complicated to understand: this will be at a molecular spectrum - not visual/lazer, not magnetic/electric, and not analog vinyl  (think of a highway:  vinyl - 1lane, first-gen magnetic/stereo - 2lane, CD - 6lane, BlueRay - 10lane.  Now we're in the digital age, so the limit is our machines (the brains) and the media they use to communicate (the languages) - so if its not your internet connection slowing you down, it's your machine (or the machine you're trying to communicate with).  The limit will then be the size of the crystal or that of our computers.

Laser

Lazer/Electricity, tomatoe/tomata - all varying-finite controlled super-heated plasma cutters.   

[Shuffler]

Other diamonds actually, typicaly on a belt-style grinder (think sand paper, except diamond paper).  All that diamond (saw) dust/shavings is a highly valuable biproduct saught by everyone from other diamond cutters, saw blade manufacturers, and R&D firms for aerospace, electronics and other things (many companies are experimenting using real diamonds/dust in manufactured crystals, they are after-all the hardest thing we know of. 

Also, the greatest scientific discovery lately in this field is that crystals can be programmed (molecularly manipulated and arragned), so R&D is huge in that field right now, using manufactured and natural crystals (and since they're doing it at the molecular level, the smaller cheaper bits of natural diamonds is ideal).  In layman's terms:  Think of a VCR casette, all that magneticly-sensitive tape inside of it is programable.  It gets run over a magnetic head that can read and/or write to the material.  Problem is with magnetic tape, it deteriorates (looses its programming) considerabley over time.  It held up better than vinyl-grooves threaded under an acoustic needle (average lifetime of 1-year play-life), and magnetic tape could store/provide more data/sound per second than physical vinyl (average 10-year play-life), but eventualy lazer/optical compact-discs (CDs) buried magnetic tape (estimated lifetime of 100-200 years).  Diamonds/crystals... last forever.  If some lucky company cracks it, likely sooner than eventually - our grandkids will be doing science-class time-capsuls, with data/music/movies/messages inside stored on crystal media, with the intent that some other kids will dig it up in 2k, 20-k, 2,000-k years and discover what they wanted to share.  Even more complicated to understand: this will be at a molecular spectrum - not visual/lazer, not magnetic/electric, and not analog vinyl  (think of a highway:  vinyl - 1lane, first-gen magnetic/stereo - 2lane, CD - 6lane, BlueRay - 10lane.  Now we're in the digital age, so the limit is our machines (the brains) and the media they use to communicate (the languages) - so if its not your internet connection slowing you down, it's your machine (or the machine you're trying to communicate with).  The limit will then be the size of the crystal or that of our computers.


Lazer/Electricity, tomatoe/tomata - all varying-finite controlled super-heated plasma cutters.   

Plasma is much different in that it imparts way more heat into the subject material.