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Post by stardiamond on Jan 18, 2022 20:46:36 GMT -5
stardiamond I am very gentle with my expensive MK Diamond trim saw blades ($30-$35 for 0.02" x 6" blades, and $50+ for a 0.032" x 8" blade). They are fragile blades and I do zero grinding with them. But with my 8" trim saw, I mostly use these blades: www.ebay.com/itm/131996186482I bought 4 for $65 total, and the first one lasted me almost a year, which included tons of slabbing small rough like Montana agates, cutting hundreds of preforms, and hours of using the edge of the blade to grind. For the price and how long they last, grinding with the blade saves wear on my wheels, although speed is the bigger advantage. These have worked out well. I use the Genie trim saw attachment which has a 1" arbor I need ream them out with a conical grinder in my drill. They cost about 1/2 than the ones with a 1" arbor. www.ebay.com/itm/120998610703 |
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Post by holajonathan on Jan 18, 2022 20:59:11 GMT -5
Nice preforms! I hate preforming too. It gets me wet because the wheel is smaller than the hood and it makes a huge mess. That grinder looks a lot like mine lol. I just cleaned mine out today. (By cleaned I mean rolled the shop vac over and vacuumed all the rock snot up! 😂) The grinder is almost just like yours. Mine makes a mess too, but it grinds fast and runs smooth and quiet, so I like it despite the mess. |
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Post by holajonathan on Jan 18, 2022 21:03:56 GMT -5
stardiamond I am very gentle with my expensive MK Diamond trim saw blades ($30-$35 for 0.02" x 6" blades, and $50+ for a 0.032" x 8" blade). They are fragile blades and I do zero grinding with them. But with my 8" trim saw, I mostly use these blades: www.ebay.com/itm/131996186482I bought 4 for $65 total, and the first one lasted me almost a year, which included tons of slabbing small rough like Montana agates, cutting hundreds of preforms, and hours of using the edge of the blade to grind. For the price and how long they last, grinding with the blade saves wear on my wheels, although speed is the bigger advantage. These have worked out well. I use the Genie trim saw attachment which has a 1" arbor I need ream them out with a conical grinder in my drill. They cost about 1/2 than the ones with a 1" arbor. www.ebay.com/itm/120998610703I was very tempted to get the Genie trim saw attachment when I got my Genie. It would have been much better than the Rock Rascal which is underpowered and hard to clean. I would still like to get the Genie saw attachment some day, although the price is obscene. Maybe I can find a deal on a used one. Do you have a newer Genie (v2, I think?) with the 1/2 hp motor? |
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Post by perkins17 on Jan 18, 2022 21:04:33 GMT -5
Nice preforms! I hate preforming too. It gets me wet because the wheel is smaller than the hood and it makes a huge mess. That grinder looks a lot like mine lol. I just cleaned mine out today. (By cleaned I mean rolled the shop vac over and vacuumed all the rock snot up! 😂) The grinder is almost just like yours. My makes a mess too, but it grinds fast and runs smooth and quiet, so I like it despite the mess. Yeah! Yours is just a little newer. I've got an awesome sintered wheel for grinding so I can't really complain about the mess. Mine grinds nice and fast too. I actually love my grinder. I basically have a Nova for every step so I can get great results once my technique is tuned in. |
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Post by stardiamond on Jan 18, 2022 21:15:46 GMT -5
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Post by holajonathan on Jan 18, 2022 21:17:47 GMT -5
The grinder is almost just like yours. My makes a mess too, but it grinds fast and runs smooth and quiet, so I like it despite the mess. Yeah! Yours is just a little newer. I've got an awesome sintered wheel for grinding so I can't really complain about the mess. Mine grinds nice and fast too. I actually love my grinder. I basically have a Nova for every step so I can get great results once my technique is tuned in. I think your arbor / sintered wheel / expando setup is great as a relatively affordable option. If I could have bought a used 8" arbor I would have probably gone that route. There is almost no used lapidary equipment for sale in Michigan. The only real advantage I see with mine are the hoods and trays, but mine still throw water all over the place, so the advantage is not a big as you might think. |
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Post by holajonathan on Jan 18, 2022 21:24:49 GMT -5
I bought my Genie and my Covington equipment (8" grinder and tumblers) from Arrowhead Lapidary. They had the best prices by far, and everything was drop shipped from the manufacturer. I have bought blades and other supplies from them as well. Good company from my experience. $372 seems so overpriced for a plastic hood, a plastic pan, a small arbor shaft / flange, and a blade. I'm sure it all fits together very nicely and that everything is good quality. That is certainly the case with my Genie. But still, it seems like a $200 accessory and not an almost $400 accessory. Even so, if I had no other trim saw, it would probably be the best option, since the Baldor motor on my Genie is much smoother, quieter, and more powerful than any trim saw in the $400 price range. |
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Post by stardiamond on Jan 18, 2022 21:33:09 GMT -5
Plusses, it doesn't rust, doesn't break, easy to mount and dismount, uses water. Minus it makes a mess. Too much water and it flows over the top.
I had to replace the mounting board, plywood instead of chip board when it warped after about 10 years.
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Post by perkins17 on Jan 18, 2022 21:38:45 GMT -5
Yeah! Yours is just a little newer. I've got an awesome sintered wheel for grinding so I can't really complain about the mess. Mine grinds nice and fast too. I actually love my grinder. I basically have a Nova for every step so I can get great results once my technique is tuned in. I think your arbor / sintered wheel / expando setup is great as a relatively affordable option. If I could have bought a used 8" arbor I would have probably gone that route. There is almost no used lapidary equipment for sale in Michigan. The only real advantage I see with mine are the hoods and trays, but mine still throw water all over the place, so the advantage is not a big as you might think. I got an awesome deal on the arbor so all the accessories were also not too damaging to the ol' budget! Used stuff comes up a lot here in Washington so I've got a lot to consider. Your hoods and pans have an advantage by a little. My hoods are some sort of steel (aluminum?) about 1/8 of an inch thick curled over wooden (yup, wooden!) sides. I noticed they were leaking s little today so I might need to spray it with some silicone and give it a painting with some waterproof gray. It works great for being a diy from the 60's! 😂 |
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Post by holajonathan on Jan 18, 2022 22:30:02 GMT -5
Plusses, it doesn't rust, doesn't break, easy to mount and dismount, uses water. Minus it makes a mess. Too much water and it flows over the top. I had to replace the mounting board, plywood instead of chip board when it warped after about 10 years. I guess I should look at the plastic as a positive for the reason you state. I can understand the value proposition even at the current price. I guess what bugs me is how cheap it must be to make. As a rational consumer, I should care only about value as a function of price and utility. The production cost shouldn't matter. I understand that. But the price just seems abusive given what it must cost to make, and that bothers me, even if it shouldn't. The problem with a lot of lapidary equipment is that the market is too small for competition to drive down prices (or to spur a lot of innovation, for that matter). No one is going to make a third-party saw attachment for the Genie because they would never be able to sell enough of them to recoup the investment in design, tooling, etc... As a result, DP charges whatever it wants. Common lapidary items, like resin wheels, have a much bigger market, and market forces have benefited the consumer greatly. The JB resin wheels come to mind, which are nearly identical to DP Novas but almost 50% cheaper. |
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Post by stardiamond on Jan 18, 2022 22:46:43 GMT -5
When a person is looking for a trim saw (not a tile saw) they are slotted into a range. The 6 inch hi tech is more expensive than the attachment saws and the cabking attachment is 6" and slightly less. My first trim saw that I got when I bought my stardiamond machine was a blade with arbor attached to a block of wood and cooled with a wet sponge. Manufacturing a saw requires making many parts. Manufacturing wheels is a simpler process.
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Post by holajonathan on Jan 19, 2022 0:58:16 GMT -5
When a person is looking for a trim saw (not a tile saw) they are slotted into a range. The 6 inch hi tech is more expensive than the attachment saws and the cabking attachment is 6" and slightly less. My first trim saw that I got when I bought my stardiamond machine was a blade with arbor attached to a block of wood and cooled with a wet sponge. Manufacturing a saw requires making many parts. Manufacturing wheels is a simpler process. A full saw requires a lot of parts, but the Genie trim saw attachment is just a hood, tray, arbor shaft, and flange, right? No motor, power cord, switch, pulley, belt, bearing, or base like a stand alone saw (such as the hi tech). I think you can still get a basic Lortone trim saw (no motor) for around $200. The basic Rock Rascal (no motor) is $182: www.johnsonbrotherslapidary.com/Rock_Rascal_Saw_Model-J_Basic.htmlThat is made of aluminum, which can't be that much cheaper or less durable than the plastic used by DP, right? I look at the Genie trim saw attachment as a modular version of basic trim saw with no motor. No doubt it works much better than those 6" trim saws, but that is because you already invested in an expensive Genie (in my case, over $2000) which has a better motor and bearing than any little stand alone trim saw. I am a little bitter about DP prices right now. I recently bought a replacement right hand arbor adapter for $86 (how can it cost that much?) www.diamondpacific.com/product/genie-right-hand-adapter/And the icing on the cake was that they charged me $32 for UPS Ground shipping -- for a small part that weighs less than a pound. So almost $120 total for stainless steel tube with a two threaded holes. |
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Post by holajonathan on Jan 19, 2022 1:22:31 GMT -5
When a person is looking for a trim saw (not a tile saw) they are slotted into a range. The 6 inch hi tech is more expensive than the attachment saws and the cabking attachment is 6" and slightly less. My first trim saw that I got when I bought my stardiamond machine was a blade with arbor attached to a block of wood and cooled with a wet sponge. Manufacturing a saw requires making many parts. Manufacturing wheels is a simpler process. Another way of looking at it... I bought my 8" stand alone trim saw for $1200 about a year ago. It weighs over 100 pounds and is constructed of heavy gauge steel with a stainless steel deck. It has a 1 hp motor and a precision manufactured arbor shaft / housing / bearing / flange setup made of stainless steel and aluminum. It also has a bunch of other costly custom made parts including the blade guard with coolant injector ports and valve and a blade alignment system. At the time, the price of the Genie trim saw attachment was the same as it is now: $443 + $67 shipping if bought directly from DP. So a little over $500. My 8" trim saw was $1200 with free shipping in a wooden shipping crate. I'm not saying one option is better than the other. One costs more than twice as much as the other, and everyone's wants, needs, and budgets are different. But I can't understand the price relationship between the two if I consider the design / material / labor costs. |
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Post by Rockoonz on Jan 19, 2022 1:43:24 GMT -5
holajonathan I have bought plenty of core drills and burrs from lau/THK on ebay, blades for my 6 inch saws might just come from them this time. You should have checked with Tony or Christopher on your DP purchase, it costs more to buy direct from them than their authorized dealers usually, they get a pretty good discount and pass it on. DP supports their dealers by not undercutting them.
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