Any Disadvantages to Kerf Thickness?

Oil or water in the saw, Jason?

Thicker kerf . . . oil gets gunked up quicker.
Small saw = smaller reservoir, so more frequent oil changes
    Check w/Duke on that bone.     : )

0.032 vs 0.050      56% more gunk
0.040 vs 0.050      25% more

0.050 is perfect in my 14” saw, so too thick for a 10” the way I see it, unless you’re just whacking tumbling rough w/water.

One thing I understand is a drop saw needs a thicker blade, but the blade to pick mostly depends upon the material being cut. I will assume agates. ;-)

I have heard good things generally about the 10" BD305 Agate Kutter. But if you want to save a few dollars, get the MK Hot Dog. Apparently, same blade, different name.

yeah, think I put a 0.32 mk 303 in my 10" saw thinking along those lines. It cuts fine, but when I replace it I'll probably get something thicker. Seems like it cuts fairly well, but on occasion when I slide the vise back I'll see the deflection of the blade. I think that if the surface is irregular at the start, the thinner blade has a more likely chance of heading off in a different trajectory.

All speculation. Cutting hard stuff here and I did line everything up with indicators etc. And yes, the less 'gunking of the oil' is noticable.

I've made a habit of one thing that really helps avoid blade deflection. When I hear the first "ticking" of the blade on a new cut I disable the feed for a few seconds and let the blade make a clean notch to start. I do this several times until I feel the blade has cut a stable track. This is very important on nodules and other rounded surfaces that might cause early deflection.

This is easy to do on my old Lortone since it has a separate switch to turn the feed on and off. That may not be the case with other saws so a work-around might be in order for those who want to do it.

A friend of mine who cuts concrete for a living says that all else equal, the wider the blade the longer it lasts. This didn't make sense to me because a wider blade makes a wider cut, so I would have thought that blades would wear at the same rate regardless of thickness. He thinks it has something to do with the diamonds at the outside edges getting the hottest and fracturing more easily that the diamonds away from the edges. Plus, he says the wider the blade the straighter the cut, and straighter cuts cause less blade wear.

I don't know for certain that his theories are correct, but the guy runs 36" x 0.25" wide blades cuts thousands of feet with them at up to around 15 inches deep. He claims that a 36" x .250" blade will cut twice as long as a 36" x .187", even though it's only 25% thicker.

His formula for cutting concrete: the biggest / widest blade he can get + a Yanmar turbo-diesel powered saw with something like 60 HP and 200 ft./lb of torque + not rushing / forcing the saw faster than it wants to smoothly cut.

I know this is not a formula for cutting lapidary material, but I do believe that wider kerfs do last longer and under-powered saws wear blades faster because of the tendency to force rocks into the blade to try to get the job done.

He has quartered some big chunks of quartz and unakite for me with his 16" Husqvarna gas-powered concrete cut off saw using a 16" MK Diamond segmented granite blade that I gave him.
He can make cuts are are nearly as straight and smooth as a slab saw in about 15-20 seconds up to a depth of around 6". If you ever have real big rough that you don't care a whole lot about, find someone with a big wet saw with an engine on it, whether it be a big gas powered masonry saw or a hand-held cut off saw. Getting huge rocks roughly quartered will save you a ton of time and effort trying to slab rough that is too big for your saw. At least that's my experience.

How does a person not take the word of someone who does something like this for a living? I absolutely buy into what he's saying. Thanks for saying something about the under-powered saws. That makes total sense as well.

I agree. It absolutely makes sense to use the concrete saw at times. A person (not intended as you) has to understand when to use dynamite, and when to use kid gloves. LOL

RickB - those were really cool videos! I've seen the wedge method before, but I've never seen the water pressure video. Wicked cool! It made me wonder if a similar method was used to cut the stones at Puma Punku. I can't imagine they could produce that amount of water pressure...but that's the first thing that popped into my head when I watched the video.