Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 17, 2013 18:49:26 GMT -5
We were writing at the same time Tom. Done for the day. I spent a lot of time bent over scrubbing the oil off of a bunch of rocks that had come out of the saw and stacked in a tub. My back does not like that so I am on break until tomorrow.
I did check the straightness of the blade with a straight edge and the blade is actually cupped just a tiny tiny bit the opposite way from the way it is wandering. I think there has to be more diamonds on one side of the blade. I am going to flip it tomorrow and see what happens.
I am going to have to change out the water real soon because I added too much soap to the mix and I am getting a lot of bubbles. lol Jim
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Tom
fully equipped rock polisher
My dad Tom suddenly passed away yesterday, Just wanted his "rock" family to know.
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Post by Tom on Nov 17, 2013 21:47:38 GMT -5
Reversed blade and it is tracking good now, it still slips the nut after the feed gets to much pressure. Clamping the feed arm the rock cuts fine. I am still going to change bearings, then realign blade and try it out. I guess I will have to put on the new half nut when it comes, I want it back to normal.
As I now know I witnessed nothing different between water and oil I will try the stuff again with a level playing field. But not untill it's oil change time. There were to many anomalies with this first test. I have to have it running perfect on oil, then switch to the water based test.
Anyway the jury is out still
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LarryS
freely admits to licking rocks
SoCal desert rats
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Post by LarryS on Nov 17, 2013 22:17:15 GMT -5
Tom, the bearings are pressed into the arbor casing. If I still worked at my old job, I could remove & press new ones in myself. Save a few bucks.
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Post by johnjsgems on Nov 18, 2013 12:11:38 GMT -5
I guess a straight edge will tell you if your blade is flat. Alignment requires checking blade for being perpendicular to vise/carriage. Poor man's way is to place a marking pen in the vise so it just touches the blade core. Slide vise to rear and see if it marks the entire core. Any time you have two bearings it is best to replace both when one is bad. Check/adjust alignment after. Someone once posted Lortone had two different feed motors. One was slower than the other. I would use the slowest motor I could find.
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Post by orrum on Nov 18, 2013 12:54:18 GMT -5
I am a newbie but...... As a confirmed vicegrips, hammer n crescent wrench kinda cowboy I have formulated a theory on water versus oil..... When using water either hand feed or gravity feed, if using oil you can do all three, hand feed, gravity feed or auto feed. I use pink anti freeze and am very pleased, do not use Wal mart or generic cause it dont prevent rust and isnt lubricative enough. If cutting hard agate, petrified wood or porceline jasper its hard on my lil 6 inch gravity feed but with my new 10 inch its no problem. What yall think? I am definitely going to get some from John and try it.
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QuailRiver
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Post by QuailRiver on Nov 18, 2013 19:51:32 GMT -5
I bought a 12" Lortone last summer (2012) from The Rock Shed and ordered it with an MK301 blade. I use a good oil and keep my blades dressed religiously. But still the original bearings didn't last 4 months. Lortone is using J.I.B. brand bearings on their 12" and 14" saws and I consider those bearings to be cheap junk. But unfortunately most all insert bearings available these days are made in Asia and are junk too. Lortone would do themselves and their customers a great service by redesigning their 12" and 14" saws to use pillow block bearings that can be re-lubed. It wouldn't require too great of a change in the saw design. The MK/BD 301 blade is supposed to be more proficient for cutting hard materials than the MK/BD 303 blades but mine was still straining to cut agates. It would be nice if the powerfeed motors on the Lortone 12" saws had a speed control rheostat but unless we add one ourselves we are stuck with a fixed feed rate. So the only other thing that can be easily modified is the arbor speed. The 12" Lortone is set up at the factory for the blade to turn 970rpm which is slow for most modern diamond blade ratings. So I replaced the 2.25 motor pulley with a 2.5" motor pulley and replaced the 4" arbor pulley with a 3.5" arbor pulley to makes the blade turn 1232rpms. I had to replace the belt to accommodate the change in pulley sizes. I found a NOS pair of U.S.A. made bearings and mounted them with a Raytech Black Blazer blade and so far have had pretty good performance with the changes. I haven't tried cutting an agate as large as the 3.5" x 4" Brazilian agate you mention. Brazilian agates are very hard and I'm not sure if my 12" Lortone would cut one that large even with the modifications. I learned early that just because a rock will fit in a rock saw vice doesn't mean the same rock saw can handle it. Maybe try your test with a smaller agate and see if it still stalls?
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Post by phil on Nov 18, 2013 20:49:06 GMT -5
Chiming in kinda late, but I've learned over the years that you always change both bearings. Always. And you have to align the blade to the carriage or you're going to have exactly the problems you mentioned. If the blade isn't dead on aligned to the carriage, it will jam and probably wear unevenly on one side, while it dishes too. It' a pain in the butt, but you've got to take the time to align the arbor right so you can enjoy relatively smooth cutting for years to come. And if the belt is too tight, you're gonna eat those new bearings up in no time flat. Invest in the right size belt, make sure you have a little slop so that it isn't too tight, or again, you'll be paying for it later. Even as little as 1/2 inch under sized belt you will come to regret. Carriage slop? Not the end of the world, but I'd fix that too while you have the unit down. Hope this helps.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 19, 2013 12:26:14 GMT -5
I kind of disagree that Scott's test does not count. He was cutting with happy results with oil (even with old blade) but not happy when using water. Lets face it none of the tests are conducted in a lab LOL. Tom And is happy using oil with the same old blade after dressing with Larry's recommended medium grinding wheel from Lowe's. It's not a laboratory, but it is apples to apples; same stones on the same blade in the same saw using two different lubricants. Water has it's advantages, oil does too. Which are important to you? That make's the choice. Every single person and situation is different. I am glad I tested. I am happy Larry recommended it to me.
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Tom
fully equipped rock polisher
My dad Tom suddenly passed away yesterday, Just wanted his "rock" family to know.
Member since January 2013
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Post by Tom on Nov 19, 2013 23:25:40 GMT -5
Hi quail, thanks for the pointers, I actually did change both bearings and aligned the blade as good as possible. The interesting thing is, after I changed to water and put the new (dressed) blade on the saw DID cut the big Brazilian with no problem. It was after that rock was cut that I started having problems. I am going to see what kind of motor the feed motor is and see about speed control. We can't really "speed" control an AC motor without a VFD, but if it's a certain type of motor we can alter the torque to "adjust" speed. I really like the pulley change idea, do you happen to have the new belt size you used
Yep, pillow block bearings would be better and even a coup,e feed rate speeds would be great, I would pay more
I was really having no problems with cutting untill I changed to water lube, but I am not implying the water caused any issues. I must have worn the half nut when I had theblade motor trip and let the feed motor run for god knows how long.
I have 2 new bearings and will Chang tomorrow, I have a half nut ordered, I have a virtually new 303 blade the now has a tiny dish to it, I have new oil in the saw. I can't see why the bearings, which I don't think are actually in bad shape, would be causing me problems
Anyway tomorrow I am goin to change bearings put on blade and cut som small rocks,
I am interested in the other guys tests with the water lube, I am not convinced it won't work. I just think I had to many things happen to me at the same time and now can't pin point the problem
Time to change pullys though
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Post by phil on Nov 19, 2013 23:35:11 GMT -5
Can you re-tap the old half nuts as a temporary fix till the new ones come in? Another temp thing we do is to use a c clamp to hold the brass nuts tight to the threaded shaft.
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QuailRiver
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Post by QuailRiver on Nov 20, 2013 0:50:10 GMT -5
tomIf I remember correctly the 12" Lortone uses a Dayton 4rpm 115volt AC shaded pole gear motor. I think this is it: www.drillspot.com/products/140933/Dayton_2Z813_Parallel_Shaft_AC_Gearmotor . I know Dayton used to make speed controllers for small fractional motors like the small one used on the old Raytech Ray-Tilt cabbing machines. I haven't checked with Dayton about this yet to see to see if that same controller will work on this small gear motor. The belt I used after changing pulley sizes was a Gates AX33 tri-power belt which I bought from O'Reilly Auto Parts. It was a tight install so an AX34 would probably work too.
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Tom
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My dad Tom suddenly passed away yesterday, Just wanted his "rock" family to know.
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Post by Tom on Nov 20, 2013 8:12:51 GMT -5
Hi Guys, Thats the thing I was clamping the nut and still it did not want to cut right, The shaft looks and feels like its running true and straight. I can't see the bearings causing problems (only because they seem tight). But maybe when under some pressure the inboard bearing shows slop?
Shaded pole motor is what I was hoping for, very easy to control the torque on that puppy, should be able to rig up control cheap and easy with that. Thanks for the belt and pulley info. As far as the control goes we should just be able to use a quality dimmer switch with a decent watt rating. The same kind as would be used on over head fans.
A shaded pole or permanent split cap motor works great with torque control. The controller Uses DIACs and TRIACs to control the voltage to the motor. The rotating magnetic field in the stator does not change speed but the torque to the motor drops the square of the voltage drop. So cut the voltage in half 1/2 and then square 1/2 leaves us with 1/4. Therefore the motor delivers 1/4 torque to the load, the slippage increases between the rotating mag field in the stator and the moving rotor so in essence it won't turn the load as fast. Sorry for the electrical lession, its the instructor in me LOL.
Hmm come up with a cheap plan and give it to lortone, free saw blades for life LOL, ya right.
Thanks for the info and I hope this makes a bit of sense I have not finished one cup of morning coffee.
Tom
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Post by phil on Nov 23, 2013 21:55:40 GMT -5
Try a different agate. Some agates will have a :knot" hidden inside that gives the best saws trouble.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 24, 2013 10:09:56 GMT -5
I am so slow/lazy/real good at putting off nasty things. I cleaned out my saw again yesterday because when I added a little soap to the water to help clean the saw I got just a wee (large wee actually) too much soap and it probably killed any lube qualities of the lube mix. It was still a really nasty oily mess from the mineral oil and it took a very large pile of old socks to get it relatively clean.
I am giving some thought to putting a thicker 10 inch tile blade on to redo all of my adjustments. I am also thinking about taking off the carriage and reworking it but the way I am it could take months and I do not have that kind of time left here before I go mobile and head south. Thinking out loud, I am not sure I can get even a close to perfect alignment with the wear and flop in the carriage.
My last "possible" is to drill and tap a hole in the top part of the carriage so I can turn a screw down through it and tighten the slack out of it. This would be the easiest fix and it would not take much to loosen it each time I moved the carriage over for another cut. The biggest problem is trying to find a place that is accessible with a large rock clamped in AND is not in the way of clamping a large rock.
I went with the only pulley that I had that would fit the 3/4 horse motor that was gifted to me when I burned up the old motor so I am running one to one, 1725, and I have had no problems. I am going to leave it as is for now but may have to change it up with the water based lube. The motor is mounted on a 2 X 6 lever below the saw so belting is no problem. Jim
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Tom
fully equipped rock polisher
My dad Tom suddenly passed away yesterday, Just wanted his "rock" family to know.
Member since January 2013
Posts: 1,557
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Post by Tom on Dec 2, 2013 14:23:42 GMT -5
Saw fixed itself:) Ok I put new bearing on the saw (the others were actually in good shape but changed anyway) Put the 303 blade back on in the direction it said to go.
Have been slicing up good size pieces of spiderweb jasper (solid material this stuff) and no problem with the nut slipping. The blade is not dished any more. Go figure???
The water based lube works awesome in my trim saw but until more people try it in their slab saws with power feed I am going to pass on it.
It could be total coincidence but when I used the water coolant that's when things went for s**t.
I actually thought it was super to begin with but I do think the blade dulls super fast like Shotgunner said in the first place.
I hope more people try it out as it must be working for other people.
Take care
Tom
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