Post by jm on Oct 7, 2015 23:28:12 GMT -5
Last year I happend across a documentary about rockhounding in Oregon and in that episode they were visiting Richardsons Rock Ranch to dig thundereggs. It looked interesting, so a few weeks later I loaded up the kids in the car and we made a trip out there to see what we could find. There were 4 normal people in the car on the way out there, but on the way home there was a 5 gallon bucket of thundereggs and 4 new rockhounds! Since then we've been collecting rocks wherever we go (the beach, the mountains, garage sales, etc.)
Of course, a bucket of thundereggs isn't a whole lot of fun to look at, so I tried cutting a few open on the little tile saw I have. I quickly found out that a 6" tile saw just doesn't cut it (pun intended).
Being the cheapskate that I am, I didn't want to spend much money on a real rock saw, so I set out to build my own based on a few different ideas I saw online and whatever I could find in my garage.
Here's what I came up with...
The basin is a plastic tub I got at GoodWill, the motor is from an old treadmill I got off Craigslist, and the tachometer I ordered off ebay. The cover is a piece of scrap 1/8" plywood I found in my garage.
I have a friend who has a machine shop, so I had him make the arbor for me (I traded him a pile of cookies to share with the guys in his shop, so everyone was happy). The arbor is a 1" shaft cut down to 5/8" on both ends. It has a keyway on one end for the pulley, and I used a die to cut threads on the other end for the blade.
A couple of pillow block bearings from ebay are used to hold the shaft.
To hold the rocks I made a 2 jaw, pivoting clamp assembly with a long bolt to clamp the jaws together. In this picture I have a little C clamp in place to fasten a block onto the main clamp in order to cut slabs.
I ran a cord from the top of the clamp out through the side of the tub, where I tie a bag of lead shot to it. I use either a 3 or 5 lb weight, depending on what I'm cutting.
I also cut a hole in the side of the tub, used some silicon to fasten some black pvc pipe to it, and hooked an old CPU cooling fan from a computer on top of it to draw air out of the tub. The pipe has several layers of the foam used in small engine air cleaners in it. This cut down on the amount of oil mist getting out into my garage.
All the electronics (speed controller, power supplies) are fastened inside the plywood box, where hopefully they won't get to much oil on them.
Here's the basic list of what it cost me to put this together, minus the blade.
Plastic tub $3
old treadmill $10
tachometer $18
pillow block bearings 2@$9
The rest of it was stuff I had laying around in my garage.
Grand total $49
It has a 10" blade in it right now, but I made it big enough to put in a 12" blade.
It's not much to look at, but it does the job. I like the fact that I can vary the speed with the rotary dial on the front and have the tachometer show me exactly how fast it's turning.
There's still a few small improvements I'm going to make to it, like a cover over the bearings, and rebuilding the clamp to get a little more travel out of it.
Next up: Building a flat lap for polishing up all the T-eggs and slabs I've been cutting.
Of course, a bucket of thundereggs isn't a whole lot of fun to look at, so I tried cutting a few open on the little tile saw I have. I quickly found out that a 6" tile saw just doesn't cut it (pun intended).
Being the cheapskate that I am, I didn't want to spend much money on a real rock saw, so I set out to build my own based on a few different ideas I saw online and whatever I could find in my garage.
Here's what I came up with...
The basin is a plastic tub I got at GoodWill, the motor is from an old treadmill I got off Craigslist, and the tachometer I ordered off ebay. The cover is a piece of scrap 1/8" plywood I found in my garage.
I have a friend who has a machine shop, so I had him make the arbor for me (I traded him a pile of cookies to share with the guys in his shop, so everyone was happy). The arbor is a 1" shaft cut down to 5/8" on both ends. It has a keyway on one end for the pulley, and I used a die to cut threads on the other end for the blade.
A couple of pillow block bearings from ebay are used to hold the shaft.
To hold the rocks I made a 2 jaw, pivoting clamp assembly with a long bolt to clamp the jaws together. In this picture I have a little C clamp in place to fasten a block onto the main clamp in order to cut slabs.
I ran a cord from the top of the clamp out through the side of the tub, where I tie a bag of lead shot to it. I use either a 3 or 5 lb weight, depending on what I'm cutting.
I also cut a hole in the side of the tub, used some silicon to fasten some black pvc pipe to it, and hooked an old CPU cooling fan from a computer on top of it to draw air out of the tub. The pipe has several layers of the foam used in small engine air cleaners in it. This cut down on the amount of oil mist getting out into my garage.
All the electronics (speed controller, power supplies) are fastened inside the plywood box, where hopefully they won't get to much oil on them.
Here's the basic list of what it cost me to put this together, minus the blade.
Plastic tub $3
old treadmill $10
tachometer $18
pillow block bearings 2@$9
The rest of it was stuff I had laying around in my garage.
Grand total $49
It has a 10" blade in it right now, but I made it big enough to put in a 12" blade.
It's not much to look at, but it does the job. I like the fact that I can vary the speed with the rotary dial on the front and have the tachometer show me exactly how fast it's turning.
There's still a few small improvements I'm going to make to it, like a cover over the bearings, and rebuilding the clamp to get a little more travel out of it.
Next up: Building a flat lap for polishing up all the T-eggs and slabs I've been cutting.
Really?
