I Guess I Need To Make Room For A Cnc Water Jet

If the only concern is swarf, and the abrasive hasn't somehow bonded to it, that would be easy enough to separate, at least when cutting ferrous material. Options for others, but the cost-benefit analysis would surely show diminishing returns fairly early on.
 
i was at an auction years ago where their water cutter went for a 100 bucks..no one wanted to move it...something like 30x50 ft..huge rig
 
I finally got back to my desk where it's easier to look stuff up. Sure enough, there are industrial abrasive recycling systems for water jets. The reasoning, beyond the sheer cost of the abrasive, is obvious once you think about it: most of the abrasive never touches the workpiece. Assuming your feed rate is appropriate, only the leading half of the effective cylinder of pressurized abrasive does any cutting. And the abrasive is typically usefully friable (not as much as engineered materials, but enough to still be useful). Only the abrasive that was completely pulverized is not reusable, and it can be screened out.
 
Last place I worked at had a waterjet machine that had a 2' x 4' bed. Whole machine was only about 4' x 6'. They didn't use it because it needed a new control board. Don't know what it went for at the auction when they closed.

I threw out a pressure washer last year when the motor quit and I had another one anyway. Should have kept that pump.
 
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