Water as a lubricant - precautions?

I use oil even in my 8" trim saw, but did try water with smokey joe's magic lube additive in a 10" HP saw only to find that it did not prevent rust and that the saw had to be cleaned/drained daily a deal breaker for me.
I've always heard that water was not adequate for anything above a 10" blade. Temps may be to high, speeds to fast to allow it to adequate cool things before boiling away?
Drain, mop, and dry. Perhaps a squirt of wd-40. Que mas?

I have a customer that uses oil for cutting agates/jaspers in his BD HP14. When he cuts Chrysacolla he drains oil, cleans saw, uses Smokey's EZ Cut to cool 10" blades I had bored to 1" for him. After, he drains, cleans, puts the 14" blade back on and refills with either new or filtered oil. My original 10" Frantom I used oil and stock piled anything that needed to be cut with water, When oil got mucky I drained and cleaned, filled with water and cut the stockpiled rock. Then drain, dried, refilled with oil.

Thanks johnjsgems, still leery of running the water....Thanks for input

panamark hey Mark, been awhile....I am still cutting my pile of holiday Jasper (nice find). Ayup I think your right. Thanks for your input. Even better I think I will hit up a contractor friend and use his wet saw. Cheers

In my big slab saw (20") I use mineral oil.
For trimming, I use a 10" saw set up like a 6' trim saw, just bigger. I use a small amount of food quality mineral oil in water with a few drops of shampoo to dissolve the oil. Seems to work better on some blades than others. I use a Raytech yellow blazer blade for trimming. If I don't push rock through it, the blade seems to last a long time.

Craig

I have three saws that I use only water on now. They all were oil saws but have been cleaned up and I use them only with tap water They are drained and the blades are dried after each use. So far I have noticed the small highland park trim saw 6 in with a brand new mk 301 blade seems to chip out a bit more using water vs. oil but it is a new blade, still a bit agressive. I very much enjoy the water vs the oil in cleanup of stones and hands. The other highland park 10 inch trim saws are water only and these are attached to arbors, one a b 12 and the other I think a b50 or 52 I like the water on these as there are no contamination of oil on the far left wheels. All of the other saws are inexpensive mineral oil.i have learned the hard way using oil on crysacolla so having a dedicated saw for cutting those petulicar stones that oil can taint is critical. Maybe I'll try water and an additive in the old j3 for those bigger more sensitive rocks. I will say that twenty plus years as a tile and granite guy has taught me to always keep blades dry after use. Rust happens quickly.

IMO a dedicated saw for water only is a good idea. I have an old 12" Slik brand lapidary drop saw with a large tin reservoir tub which I use with tap water only. Bought it cheap off of Craig's list a few years ago. The saw was already old and rusty when I got it so it is no loss to use with water. I use water resistant grease in the saw's bearings and use the cheap Chinese crimped edge blades with it that I bought from HANS lapidary a few years ago (10 for $92.00). So the short lifecycle of using a 12" blade with water doesn't get too costly. Can't cut the harder materials with these crimped edge blades and water but I've managed to cut a lot of Picture Rock from the Uwharries, Palomino Picture Rock from Oregon, Howlite from Tick Canyon, Flowering Tube Onyx from Utah, and various copper minerals, etc. with them. After using this saw I empty the reservoir, hose everything but the motor down, and then wipe the whole thing down with a natural sponge and leave to air dry. When I'm done using it for a while, after it's dried, I spray it with WD-40 before I put it away.

As the saying goes "She ain't much to look at" but she gets the job done.


If I only have just a few pieces of material needing to be sawn with water then sometimes I use water with Raytech's Raycool treatment added in either my Rock Rascal model "J" (for smaller pieces) or my Raytech 10" saw. After sawing I immediately drain, clean and dry the saw and then let the saw further air-dry over night. Then the next day add mineral oil to the reservoir and run the saw to circulate the oil and make sure every thing get's coated with oil well before storing.

Larry C.

I believe it is a type of argillite. It has been found at several locations along the Uwharrie River and some of the contributory creeks to the Uwharrie River. Most of it has a MOH's hardness of 5 to 6. It can be cabbed but doesn't take a high polish. Although I did dig out some that was next to a quartz vein so was a little harder from absorbing more silica and did take a better than average polish for this material.

When out hunting artifacts back in the 70s and early 80s we used to find it as float from east of Denton all the way up to NW Randolph County. Around 1980 we found a vein and got permission from the land overseer and were able to collect a good bit of it. We sold some from that location at shows back in the 80s as "Louetta Picture Rock". But the owner of the land that vein was on passed away and the land was sold off. Part was divided up into residential lots, a road was put through, and the rest was fenced off by a new owner. So we no longer had access.

I've also heard that there used to be a large vein of it by a steel bridge on hwy 64 near Tabernacle that the owners would let mineral clubs do field trips at back in the 1960s. But they got tired of people leaving trash and not filling in their holes so stopped letting anyone dig. Then in the 70s, hwy 64 was widened and rerouted in some stretches and I think that site was lost to collecting altogether as a result.

Here are a few examples that I collected, slabbed and cabbed, back in late 70s and early 80s.
















Larry C.