Some Tile Saw questions

Hello,

The 24" is the table size or the size of tile it will cut.

It will cut you but not just by touching or scraping a little. If you hole your finger there for a few seconds it will cut or burn you. Don't be afraid of the blade it's not like a wood saw blade that one touch will take a finger off.
I put my elbows on the table and with both hands cut the rock. Hold on tight and work it slow. Also wear ear plugs it makes a awful noise.
I would get a blade from John another member here.
www.jsgemslapidary.com
Again earplugs and glasses. Use gloves if you want they will get wet.
I am sure many others will give some input on this subject.
Jason

Thanks for the suggestions guys! Everything you said makes a lot of sense. There IS a backstop, and I can see how that would work. I'll have my husband drag the saw out to the backyard so it can make all the mess it wants, I'll just wait til it's a bit warmer to try out.

Thank you guys again for the helpful suggestions!!

Biggest worry with using tile saws with thinner lapidary blades is what rpm does it run. It should say somewhere on the saw. Most tile saws run very fast (my MK10" saw turns 3450 rpm, most 10" lapidary saws run about 1/2 that speed. A good sintered lapidary blade won't cut your fingers. Any 8" super thin blade (thinner than .025") will usually be a plated rather than sintered blade. Electroplated blades have the diamonds surface applied so diamonds actually stick out of the surface and will cut fingers. If it is a belt driven saw and husband doesn't mind, the pulleys can be changed to slow the saw down. You can find recommended speeds for Barranca/MK lapidary blades on the Barranca Diamond website.

I made a splash guard for my tile saw so I don't need to stand in back of it. don't like cutting that way!

I use a cheap tile saw with a good thin blade. Thick blades waste a lot of rock. I buy "Hot Dog" blades directly from MK Diamond.

If you are just starting out, stand behind the saw and pull the rock onto the blade. This way, you stand behind the spray and stay drier.

If you stand in front of the saw and push the rock onto the blade, there will be less spray on the walls and floor because your face and chest will deflect the spray instead.

Rock pushers have difficulty becoming rock pullers. So learn to pull rock from the very start.

One more suggestion ... you may want to consider rubber gloves. The blade spray will expose you to nickel, cobalt and other metals. The rocks will also expose you to all kinds of possibilities. I developed skin allergies from cobalt and cured the problem with blue nitrile gloves.

Good luck and stay dry.

Darryl.

Nate, that's exactly what the saw looks like! It's just a ordinary wet tile saw... I think the only one they sell at building supplies around here. It works fairly well tho according to my husband.

Darryl, that was funny ("your face and chest will deflect the spray instead"). I was visualizing that, the saw spitting rock smut at me with my eyes squished shut trying to push the blade over a rock! LOL! But as the picture Nate posted shows, the table is too long to use it from any direction but the back, and it doesn't seem to spray too badly (on my husband, I didn't actually use it, he only showed me how to use it).

John, the RPM is 3550 for the saw... there is no controller to slow it down. But I can pull it slower through the rock, that's the only control it's got. We actually tried the saw tonite after dinner. My husband used it, but getting to see how it worked was hugely helpful! We used it on the back porch, and the water spray was less of a problem than the CLOUD of rock dust coming off of the saw as it cut. The water was pouring off the saw, onto the rock... so I don't know why even small rocks make such a HUGE cloud of breathable dust.

What blade would you recommend for cutting boulder opal on this saw? That's why I wanted the super thin blade. And could I use that same blade to cut jasper and agates, or would I swap back to this thicker blade? I don't even know what this blade is, but it's very thick. My husband used this saw for granite... not tile or brick, so I know it's got a heavy duty rock cutting diamond blade on it already, even if I can't see what it is (the blade is buried under the yellow guard you see in the pix Nate so nicely provided above).

Diane, I'm much less afraid of it now that I've seen it work close up. I'd seen it before of course, but I never paid attention to it. It's so LOUD tho!! One teeny rock and it sounds like... well a saw... but LOUD:P. The screeching metal sounds like something VERY HUGE is trying to eat something else VERY HUGE. Then you look down, and there's this little 1 1/2" rock getting cut in 1/2. Very big disconnect between the sound and the fury, vs what's actually going on:).

Frog, I think the water spray is less of a problem than breathing the silicone coming off the rocks. I think a mask is a bigger deal now than the water! Definitely need a mask for any long use. Tho it is sort of discouraging to cut a few rocks and look like you jumped in a mud puddle, face first. I will find a mask AND a plastic apron when the weather warms up a bit more and I can use it longer:).

Kevin, I think you're exactly right about the grinding action! I agree that's why it doesn't slice your fingers off. When I ran my hand along the 'blade' while not running, I wondered how that cut anything at all, it's so wide and thick, it's like the back of a kitchen knife. It's just a super fast and super efficient grinder!

I forgot to thank Jason, Don and Geoff, who earlier provided super helpful info about the saw and how to use it (earplug suggestion, having a good grip on the rock and leaning on the backstop, pulling the saw towards me to cut, and warnings about the mud shower). To have the explanations before my husband showed me was great, because I didn't need him to explain what was obvious to him but not to me (also, since I knew the shower was coming, I could stand behind him so only he got soaked and not both of us. Hehe!). Such great info, thanks everyone:).
Helen

Don't overhead blade saws spray the water away from the operator? Mine does. Pulling it may still make it steadier to cut the stone in a straight line though. Tile saws very definitely cut right through finger nails, and you don't hardly feel it coming until it hits your nail bed. Ouch. Big time! Messy. Trust me.

With a good blade, I trim most agate and jasper slabs fairly well on a tile saw. I use my 10" lapidary saw too, but I like my 7" tile saw better than any 6" lapidary saw I have used. The blade is key.

My saw uses a seven inch blade. There really are no seven inch lapidary blades -- that's a size only used in tile saws. The thinnest blade I can find is .050 inches thick. I mostly cut very hard material though, so a blade thinner than that wouldn't be a good choice anyway.

With 8" you have a full range of blade choices, but I think if the saw is water-cooled, you are still going to need to stick with a fairly thick blade. Thin blades are usually for oil cooled saws - true lapidary saws. The best all around 8" water cooled blade I think is probably a Barranca Diamond 303P. It is .067 inches thick. I've heard their 303C is an even better blade, it's .060" thick, but I think those are supposed to be oil cooled.