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Post by phil on Mar 21, 2013 22:17:25 GMT -5
for 8 to 10 people to use at a time, what manufacturer would you choose, and what equipment would you choose? Today I was asked by the city to provide a list of equipment, prices and footprints so they can do some planning. I've sent for catalogs from: Covington, Highland park Lortone Graves and Inland.
Who else should I consider? And yes, John and other dealers here are welcome to send catalogs, prices etc. I need print matter to carry into the council meeting, electronic catalogs and etc won't work.
Preliminary thinking.... 1 6 inch trim saw 2 10 inch trim slab saws 1 14 inch slab saw (all units must be table top) 2 dual 8 inch grinder wheel setups 2 grinder/ polisher units, at least 4 wheels per with wheels spaced so that 2 people can work side by side, compact units will be considered too individualistic. probably set up with diamond wheels.
Ok, any thoughts? I could use everyones help.
Thanks! Phil
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The Dad_Ohs
fully equipped rock polisher
Take me to your Labradorite!!
Member since September 2012
Posts: 1,860
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Post by The Dad_Ohs on Mar 21, 2013 23:50:49 GMT -5
the shop in my rock club has 2 genie 6 wheel units, a 4 inch trim saw, a 8 inch trim saw, a 10 inch slab/trim saw, a 18 inch slab saw, 4 expando machines, 2 that go to 400 grit, 2 that go to 800. these are all along the walls and the center has an 'L' shaped bench about 12 feet long x 6 feet long... there are foredom rotaries every 6 feet for members to use and the but are kept separately.. signed out as needed for security. there is a kiln at the far end of the room for glass, pmc, etc:... and a silversmithing area too.. a separate room is available fir wire wrapping classes with a diner table in the center of the room to encourage people to talk while working to lighten the atmosphere in there.
Hope this helps.
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Post by Rockoonz on Mar 22, 2013 1:24:04 GMT -5
Preliminary thinking.... 1 6 inch trim saw I would get 2 8 inch saws with thick sintered blades so they could hand slab little stuff as well as trim 2 10 inch trim slab saws Never! too messy for an educational shop. 1 14 inch slab saw maybe an 18 incher too? Saws are the backbone of a lap shop unless you have a source for lots of slabs. (all units must be table top) Even slab saws? 2 dual 8 inch grinder wheel setups yep, with motors on top preferrably 2 grinder/ polisher units, at least 4 wheels per with wheels spaced so that 2 people can work side by side, compact units will be considered too individualistic. probably set up with diamond wheels. I would use diamond hard wheels with expando drums. Start with SiC belts till you see what your budget is going to look like. You will also need a couple cerium polishing units like 12 inch leather bull wheels
Ok, any thoughts? I could use everyones help.
Thanks! Phil
It would be good to poll members on what they want to be able to do. At my clubs shop here in the NW the sanders and polishers for flats like cut thunder eggs or petrified wood are often more used than the cabbing equipment
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Member since January 1970
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2013 9:46:20 GMT -5
well, I think a rock shop should have sphere machines. That means 24" saws too. I have a similar question, but rather than hijack this thread.
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Post by phil on Mar 22, 2013 11:05:55 GMT -5
Thanks. This isn't a club tho, so no "members" to poll. It's for setting up a lapidary (cabochon focused) shop at a city owned and operated senior center.
Yes to everything must go tabletop. That pretty much lets out anything larger than a 14 inch saw. Can only have one "large" saw. Currently, in the existing lapidary class we have 2 6 inch saws, 1 10 inch saw, 2 14 inch saws, 2 Star dual wheel grinders, and 2 covington polisher units. I based my projection on how this set up is working, and what I'd like to see instead.
As far as budget, we have none once the city sets it up. All repairs, maintenance, etc cost must be borne by the users fees, which are currently $4 per session, 2 sessions per week, each running about 3.5 hours. We average about $65 per week in collected fees, and another $10 in slab sales from the 14 inch saws. We have saved up enough to convert to all diamond the first week of April (about $1200), and will probably have to raise the fees to $5 per session. Still cheap I think.
We've been going thru SiC belts and wheels pretty fast, so much so that all my time is spent on maintenance while the other instructors teach. Too much down time for me for replacement, dressing wheels, repairs, cleaning, flushing the plumbing, etc. I'd like to be able to cab a little myself, you know?
Why are we looking at setting up a new "shop"? Simple. With the increase in boomer retirement, we are getting swamped with beginners. We've had to "graduate" the previous group of 35 people using the existing shop (talk about very overcrowded!) to a new set up of structured classes for an additional 35 beginners, with an average of 2 newbies every week walking in the door and asking to learn. So, very over taxed on the equipment in the existing setup, which can handle about 10 people at a time only.
We've split the new class structure into 2 groups. Beginners and intermediates. The beginners attend one structured class on Tuesdays, and the intermediates a less structured class on Thursdays. Each is projected to take 4 months of classes (only around 50 hours actual use time, and at the ridiculous price of approx $1.20 per hour which includes equipment, supplies and instruction) to advance to the next level. Some folks are faster, some slower.... so we adjust as necessary.
Once you reach a certain level of competence, we "graduate" you to make room for the newbies coming up from the rear. The new shop is so the "graduates" have a place to go once we have taught them as much safety, instruction and tricks of the trade that we can. Otherwise, they would have to go buy their own equipment, etc, and cab alone. That usually kills their newfound hobby. The ladies like to talk, the men like to work the machines. Somehow it all works out.
As always, any help, suggestions, etc appreciated. Oh.. also requested a Kingsley catalog.
Thanks, Phil
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Post by Rockoonz on Mar 22, 2013 11:51:48 GMT -5
Perhaps check with Highland park if they would be willing to custom build you an 18 incher with no legs and the motor mounted on the back of the saw. Or cut them off yourself. Maybe someone would be willing to cut for hire off site with larger saws. If the new shop is for graduates who can be trusted with expensive diamond nova type wheels or expandos with belts, I would probably buy the Lortone stainless 6 wheel arbors and mount 4 wheels on each to leave more room for large cabs. If you have lots of square footage for bench space it's nice to be able to spread out a bit. Cab King units might be ok too, but I'm a bit leery of the Genie type unit in a production setting as they are grossly under-engineered and fragile IMO.
Lee
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Post by Pat on Mar 22, 2013 12:51:01 GMT -5
I'd add Diamond Pacific to the catalog list. They make the Genie et al.
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Post by catmandewe on Mar 22, 2013 13:52:22 GMT -5
I would check with Diamond Pacific also, they have some good equipment.
Tony
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Don
Cave Dweller
He wants you too, Malachi.
Member since December 2009
Posts: 2,616
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Post by Don on Mar 22, 2013 14:22:29 GMT -5
I'd want to outfit the shop with DP grinding equipment. Pixie, Genie, and Titans. THere's a guy in town here who decided to do a lapidary shop and outfited it with covington combination units. I saw the 8" SIC thumper wheels on those setups and decided it wasn't worth the 30/hr he was charging to use them.
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robsrockshop
has rocks in the head
Member since August 2012
Posts: 715
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Post by robsrockshop on Mar 22, 2013 14:55:50 GMT -5
I'd order a 24" Highland Park. Esp if it's taxpayer funded lol. As far as 'must be table top' just play stupid. Oh look..........I can't believe how big it is I didn't think it would be that large! From day 1 everyone is going to bitch that they don't have a larger saw. I'm not being totally serious but if I thought I could pull it off I would.
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Minnesota Daniel
freely admits to licking rocks
A COUPLE LAKERS
Member since August 2011
Posts: 891
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Post by Minnesota Daniel on Mar 22, 2013 19:29:35 GMT -5
How old do you need to be to use the senior center?
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Post by phil on Mar 23, 2013 14:04:54 GMT -5
How old do you need to be to use the senior center? Depends. Some are 50, some 55.
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Post by NM Stone Supply on Mar 24, 2013 9:20:15 GMT -5
Phil, I know this probably is not the right place to post this but what the heck, I just want to say thank you for sending many friends from the center over to my booth to buy stone. I had about 5 people tell me "Phil told me to come get stone from you". You are a great guy and next time I see you I will have a surprise reward for you. Thanks again and good luck with this. BTW I use a Lortone 6 wheel 6 inch grinder. The wheels are 2 1/2" wide (great for any size cab). The 120 grit wheel is solid, the rest are actually expanding drums with diamond belts. I use them a lot and they hold up great. I know the other brands have a great name and everyone likes them but personally if I had the money for another new grinder I would go Lortone. Now for the saws I recomend HP.
Jason
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Post by phil on Mar 24, 2013 14:35:44 GMT -5
Welcome. I thought about 6 inch units to save money, specially as newbies and people with no personal investment in the equipment tend to be hard on everything. But if I can get 8 inchers, well, that's better! Gonna go diamond, as that's what we are teaching on (or will be come the first week of April) at the learning "center". We're converting everything to diamond except one 100 grit SiC wheel for those "particular" rocks. I'm thinking: 1 Raytech 6 inch trim saw, mostly for the ease of a removable sump cleanup. Water use only, so folks doing turquoise and other oil susceptible rocks have something to cut on. 2 Raytech 10 inch saw's, again, ease of removable sump. These will be oil use. But with removable sumps, could go either way. (so far, haven't found any other manuf's that make small saws with removable sumps.... are there any others?) The 14 inch slab saw I haven't decided on a manuf, but probably will recommend DP. Wish I could find a Lortone drop saw... Not gonna go larger, then the senior center becomes competition for the few rock shops that slab for a fee, and we certainly don't want to go into competition with them, plus per city rules, we can't cut rock for walk-ins... paying $4 to use a $2K plus slab saw to get over $100 worth of cutting done is not fair to the folks who are part of the class and come every week. Besides, the slabs they cut for the $4 fee does a heck of a lot more wear and tear on the expensive blades. Sorry, no free rides.... Local shops only charge $1.25 to $1.50 per linear inch so if it's worth cutting, they can pay the fees. Oops... sorry about the soapbox... It'd be a different story if the city paid for our blades and wheels and such, but they don't. 2 - 2 wheel coarse grinder stations like the old Star's, Lortones or with one Sic 100 grit wheel and one 100 grit Diamond wheel per. The availability of coarse grinding and shaping stations seems to be a bottle neck for us, so having plenty of slots for initial shaping and grinding will probably be a good thing, as that takes longer than the polishing does. and maybe 2 - 6 wheel DP Titans with standard 8 inch setup. But will check out the Lortones and see how they compare, then go with the best price I guess. That should be good enough to accommodate about 10 folks at a time I think, and that will be enough.
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Post by Bikerrandy on Mar 24, 2013 16:18:42 GMT -5
I use a tile saw for all of my trimming, they can be purchased for less than $100. I've been using my $88 Workforce saw for 7 years. It has sat outside for the last 6 of them. As for the slab saw, I highly recommend one with gravity-feed. I always had problems with the auto-feed binding since the auto-feed doesn't know how hard the rock is (it never slows down to let the blade catch up). I converted mine, apparently this is a common problem with Covington saws.
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Post by NatureNut on Mar 24, 2013 16:48:19 GMT -5
Randy, LOL... I couldn't read a word you wrote 'cause I was laughin' so hard at your avatar.
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Post by phil on Mar 25, 2013 9:44:07 GMT -5
snip. I always had problems with the auto-feed binding since the auto-feed doesn't know how hard the rock is (it never slows down to let the blade catch up). I converted mine, apparently this is a common problem with Covington saws. We used to have that problem till we adjusted the clutch on our 14 inchers autofeed. I called Covington and they told me how to set it. Turns out it was too tight and wouldn't adjust to the rocks hardness. So far, since we adjusted it, (knock on wood), we've had no problems with over driving. We cut a lot of Petrified wood. Don't know if I can describe adjusting it right, but here goes. (This is for the 14, don't know if same procedure works for other sizes or not. Call and ask?) Grab the threaded shaft while saw is running (use a glove) and if you can stop it from turning using just one hand, the clutch is too loose. If you can't using two hands, the clutch is too tight. Adjust by turning the nut at the rear of the shaft 1/4 turn at a time till you cannot stop the shaft using just one hand, but you can stop it using two hands. IIRC, clockwise was tighter, and CCW was looser. You have to hold the shaft while adjusting so you don't just rotate the whole shaft/motor etc. Hope that helps! Phil
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barclay
has rocks in the head
Lowly Padawan of rocks
Member since November 2011
Posts: 510
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Post by barclay on Mar 30, 2013 11:48:24 GMT -5
I have had good luck using a 10" Harbor Freight brick saw for trimming and some slabbing. My second lapidary machine was an Inland and I kept having problems with water getting in the motor. Somewhere on this forum I read that I wasn't alone. A friend of mine has a similar unit from Ameritool and loves it. Although they are small people may get frustrated messing with a swap top unit.
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Post by Peruano on Apr 3, 2013 6:50:59 GMT -5
Phil, It sounds like you deserve a lot of attaboys for contributing to the cause for others. Don't forget to let others help and leave you a bit more grinding time. I'm guessing you are talking about Palo Duro Sr. Center of which I have heard but never investigated. Tom
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Post by phil on Apr 3, 2013 11:11:20 GMT -5
Tom, Thanks. Come by some Tuesday (beginners class) or Thursday (intermediate class) morning and you can see our set-up. Current classes are full and thus closed, but you can still look at our little set up. We get inquiries from near and far so I guess we're doing something right. One guy in Florida wanted to sign up even! That's just a _little_ too far...... I sent him to the schools in North Carolina. No classes this week for maintenance and updates. Yesterday the instructors and a few volunteers upgraded the whole place to $1200 worth of diamond wheels, new water tubing to replace the leaky stuff, etc And we had to pay for them out of our own pockets, the city doesn't fund activities anymore. We've been saving our little $4 session fees like crazy, so now we're broke again. Talk about a fiasco.... I just hope the wheels last us about a year or so.
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