How many cuts, how often to dress?

I run an 18" and a 24" and rarely ever dress a blade. And only then to diagnose a problem feeding.

Proper cutting action of hard materials slowly erodes the matrix holding the diamonds all by itself. The rocks dress for you every cut.

Depends on many things. Like Scott I rarely had to dress the blade on my HP24. On my hand feed saws (MK101 and my Cut Above 10) you can readily tell when you need to dress blade as pushing too hard will glaze the blade and slow the cut. On the larger Lortones the feed is way too fast and frequent dressing would be needed. Not sure on the 10". If one of the older saws I only hear great things so maybe they cut slow. I know people cutting High Desert hard rock that dress every 6 or 7 cuts. If 303C, 301, or 305 blade they actually cut better speeded up a little (blade speed, not feed speed). Run at 2000-2200 they will cut better than the old book recommendation of 1500-1800. How long a blade lasts depends on what you cut, how much you cut, what coolant you use and how careful you are when clamping rock in vise. Bear in mind the MK/BD blades use a fairly soft matrix so they cut fast and smooth but will wear out faster than harder matrix blades.

For a point of reference - on my BD10 with the MK303 blade, I get about 3 cuts of a max size hard rock when I'm using water with additives and hand feeding (trying to be non-aggressive with the pressure but you know how it is). Blade wears out fast with this system. More cuts probably with oil between dressing. I'm interested in other people's answers.

I never dress. I do all of my slabbing naked.
Whoops, I misread the question.

I never dress my blade.
If you have to dress a blade, there is something causing glazing over of the metal. Fix that problem.
Lortone has a slow & fast feed drive for their 12 & 14" saws. The fast one often feeds faster than the blade can cut, so it glazes over.
Lynn

Is it cutting problem free?

If cuts are clean and smooth I wouldn't think dressing is in order

Mine only binds on full height cuts. I think because the blade is not perpendicular and parallel to the vice.

I need to call them about this.

Ever use a Skilsaw with a dull blade? It takes more force to push through the wood, wanders off the line when it gets really dull, and the sound changes. A dull skilsaw blade emits an obnoxious high-pitched squeal- a sharp blade is soft and quiet. Also look at the teeth on a dull blade. The corners are rounded.

Check the profile on a new lapidary blade vs. one that has seen a lot of use, and you will notice the same square vs. rounded profile. When you dress a blade, you want to restore that same sharp edge.

Think about this: how do they resharpen (dress) your table saw blade? They grind it. They don't run it through a piece of ironwood or lignum vitae, they GRIND it. That's what you need to do to your lapidary blades. After I started grinding blades, I am convinced that all the traditionally used methods of "dressing" a diamond blade are pretty much bogus- the white stones, bricks, obsidian, old grinding wheels, etc. Think about this- do you think they sharpen the diamond blades used to cut asphalt, etc, by running them through red bricks?

If you use a good quality blade and it is properly aligned, you will get a smooth cut if you are feeding properly. The first indicator of a blade needing dressing for me is the sound it makes. Just like the skilsaw blade, I can tell when the sound changes. Secondly, the cuts get rougher. There is no predictor for how long this takes- as was mentioned above there are too many factors in play here to put a time to it. I say dress the blade when it doesn't cut as well as it did new.

If I want to learn how to do something right, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel I go to the people who do that thing for a living. I copy their tools and techniques. I know an outfit in the NW (you've heard of them) that runs probably 15-20 16" and greater HP saws continuously cutting all types of material. That's where I learned the blade grinding technique. There may be more than one way to skin a cat, but I will pay more attention to the guy who skins cats all day long.