Combined liquid guided laser and electrical discharge machining

A workpiece, comprising:

• a base material, and
• at least one finished feature in the base material created by:
• positioning the workpiece in a liquid guided laser cutting path;
• liquid guided laser machining the workpiece to create at least one intermediate feature in the workpiece;
• positioning the workpiece in an electrical discharge machining (EDM) device, wherein an electrode of the EDM device is operatively positioned proximate the at least one intermediate feature in the workpiece;
• and,
• electrical discharge machining the workpiece using the EDM device to modify the at least one intermediate feature in the workpiece to create the at least one finished feature in the workpiece.

A system comprising:

• a liquid guided laser device with a liquid guided laser cutting path;
• an electrical discharge machining (EDM) device with an electrode;
• a first positioning system for positioning a workpiece in the liquid guided laser cutting path for creating at least one intermediate feature by machining the workpiece with the liquid guided laser device;
• and,
• a second positioning system for positioning the workpiece such that the electrode of the EDM device is operatively positioned proximate the at least one intermediate feature in the workpiece to modify the at least one intermediate feature to create at least one finished feature in the workpiece;
• and
• wherein the workpiece is transferred between the first positioning system and the second positioning system with a common reference to be used by the first positioning system and the second positioning system to provide alignment between at the least one intermediate feature and the at least one finished feature in the workpiece.