grizman
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since July 2011
Posts: 878
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Post by grizman on Apr 12, 2013 12:10:47 GMT -5
Hi, I'm obviously a "newbie" to most of the lapidary world. I am an avid rock tumbler, and now want to start making some small slabs to polish in my tumblers.
Here's my question. I see that I can buy a 10" tile saw from Harbor Freight that has a 2.5 hp motor. Loritone has a 10" trim saw that has a 1/3 hp motor. I'd like to know why the difference in hp ratings for basically the same (size) tile/trim saws? I know there are other differences, including price, but I know very little about things to look for in a reliable saw. I hear some are extremely noisy, like the Harbor Freight saw?
Part two. I hear that many of these saws are messy & some are very noisy, and are not good for indoor usage, so it's either the backyard, or the driveway. At either location, the neighbors may get tired of me in a quick hurry, if I am too noisy. Is there such a thing as a relatively "quiet" trim saw that I could consider for making small slabs? I'd like to get at least a 10" saw so that I could slab up to 3", and also trim. Maybe the Loritone 10" trim could be used indoors? How about the oil issue? As you can already see, I don't have a clue!
I keep getting a general recommendation to go with a cheap tile saw from Home Depot etc., but I want to slab up to 3" rocks, so the 4"-6" blades are not going to work for me. Any thoughts on this and suggestions on which direction I should take, would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
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Post by Rockoonz on Apr 12, 2013 12:39:36 GMT -5
HP ratings of electric motors can be decieving. When the motor is part of the finished product like the tile saw, and not a bolted on unit it would seem they can use a different calculation to come up with it. Of course the Lortone saw is far superior to a tile saw in every sense, but the trade off is more cash. Noise-wise, the most elegant solution I have seen was a treated plywood cover on a 10 inch trim/slab saw. The wood absorbs most of the high pitched cutting noise. If cutting outdoors in a neighborhood you will probably want to set a reasonable curfew. Oil? for a small trim/slabber but it at wallyworld by the pint, you won't need much.
Lee
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Post by deb193redux on Apr 12, 2013 14:35:31 GMT -5
Trim vs slab is always a tradeoff when you want one saw to do it all. IMO those overhead 10" tiles saws are very poor trim saws because of the angle where the blade meets the slab. This is not an issue if you cut all the way through, but a big issue if you are trying to trim a right angle. (Search up the recent thread where someone made a jig to get the slab 90-deg to the blade to minimize trim effects.)
You could use a saw like the 10" Lortone indoors, and you could even use water with a drop of some surfactant. A lot of the mess of tile saws is the faster blade speed in addition to open reservoirs. The blade will not last as long with water, but if you only cut a few hours a week, the additional cost is not a lot. Oil or water, there will be a little misting that settles on nearby surfaces. So I mean in a garage or basement and not in you livingroom.
The big drawback of the Lortone is no autofeed available. I think you can order a vise, and rig a gravity feed. I am not sure how good (if any) a cross-feed the vise has though. Otherwise, it is stainless, there is a plastic hood available, it will be quieter, and you can buy a used motor locally (if you want) and save on the cost of shipping a new motor.
The 10" tile saw's nicest feature IMO is the sliding table. (Here too a vise is available and you can rig a gravity feed). When you are handling a rock with no flat surfaces to help you slide it onto the blade, it is very nice when you can hold the rock still and slide the whole table onto the blade. The drawback other then the angle of the cut, and the messy water spray, is noise.
Do not be too quick to overlook small 7" tile saws - at least as a starter unit. The angle of the slab and the blade is much better. The 7" are quieter then the 4" (which have to spin faster to stiffen up the thinner 4" blades and get a good surface feet per minute). They are 1/4 the cost of the 10" models.
Even after I had 10" trim saws available to me, I still trim a lot on my 7" tile saw because it is fast, and it is easy to do a little pre-grind on the side of the thicker blade. ALso you can learn to roll the rock on the blade and get 2.5 to 2.75 inch cuts. The face may not be perfectly flat. But if you then take each half and make 1.25" tall slabs for it, the slabetts will have a flat face.
I agree with Lee it is hard to compare free-standing and direct-drive motor HP. Anyway, features like available vise and feed options and sound are much more important than HP, because when you do it right the saw blade is grinding through the material and the process is driven by abrasion - not force.
If yo want more slabbing than trimming, and are OK with periodic outdoor work sessions, get the 10" tile.
If you want more trim precision and anytime indoor use, get a 10" trim/slab, or just a 10" trim.
But, you can start with a $45 tile saw (maybe a lot less on Craigslist), and a $30 blade and learn more about what you want to do, how much noise you can stand, and how much mess you can tolerate.
Later you can spend a few hundred on something like the 10" tile or the Lortone, or maybe you will come across a used 10" slab/trim with an auto-feed.
For tumble-polishing I used a 7" tile saw to cut up slabs and to make small slabbetts. For almost two years the tile saw and my Lot-O tumbler were all I had.
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grizman
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since July 2011
Posts: 878
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Post by grizman on Apr 13, 2013 17:08:08 GMT -5
Thanks for the great information and sharing your take on where I should start out. I appreciate your taking the time to reply to all my inquiries. Have a great day guys!
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