What's the thinnest tile saw blade available?

Well. Bud I'll be quite candid with you, since you don't strike me as being a delicate flower and you sound like you want to really want to grill me regarding my credentials - and even my motives.

Now if you say there are no secrets, It's a bit hard to fathom what secrets I'll take away from you. I'm pretty much who I say I am -and probably a lot more too. I am a stone cutter if I cut stones - a beginning one at that. I looked over the DIY site and no I don't think they will know what I need to know. In fact, I have my doubts that I'll find out all I need to know here either as my needs may be more specialized than the knowledge base here, including yours. So far I've already learned some things from other members that will help me do what I need to know to accomplish my goals I may well have to go to lapidary sites or consult with materials scientsits and even geologists, perhaps even Japanese ones most familiar with the specifics of the stone I cut from specific mountains and mines in Japan that have a history of matching with particular steels of knife and swordmakers. But I hope that there's some knowledge here that will help me. By all means don't tell me anything you don't want to.

I on the other hand am an open book. If I know knowledge, I share it. In my life studying many fields of knowledge, I've found that knowledge isn't easily contained. If you know something and keep it proprietary, people will discover it themselves, advance their knowledge past yours and leave you in the dust as a forgotten piece of history. Either way, knowledge continues to accumulate and we all continue to grow, standing on the shoulders of the giants that passed before us. It's your choice and I choose to share knowledge. Try me if you like.

So Bud, if there's more about me you want to know, ask.

So since you'd like a bit more of an introduction, here it is. I have a medical background as a Physician Associate, and performed hand and microvascular surgery for 12 years. Afterwards, I practiced neurology for another 12 years, primarily studying disorders of human movement. Then I switched fields and worked as a programmer, primarily involved in using scientific visualization for studying data, including medical imaging, astrophysics, fusion reactions, molecular modeling and genetics to name a few fields of study. I worked for a private company and then for a government laboratory supporting scientists al over the USA to help them analyze their data. More recently, I've been performing image guided neurosurgery, assisting the neurosurgeon by analyzing the data in the operating room to help plan surgical approaches to brain tumors to minimize the injury that the surgery produces. I've had a long time interest in cooking, going back to my first job in a physiology lab out of college, where I began to study French cuisine. I've since studied multiple cuisines, and have developed a particular interest in Japanese cuisine, which lead to my interest in sharpening knives, an area I am now trying to form into a business venture. Specifically I am interested in cutting sharpening stones for specific tasks involved in sharpening. Needless to say I have a great deal of specialized knowledge in this area of sharpening and more specifically in the stones I use for sharpening. I don't mean to be immodest, but I doubt you will be telling me much about using these stones for sharpening knives. You may be able to tell me something about cutting these stones, but I really don't think I'll be hanging out a shingle for using a tile saw for the usual purposes, so if you happen to leak any secrets especially ones that anyone reading this site might not already get, well that knowledge will probably die with me.

If the questions I asked were ones I already knew the answer to, well then you might think I'm a trial lawyer - or an idiot - or both. I'm not. I'm simply trying to see what is known in this field that can help me in my areas of interest.

So if there's any other tests I need to pass with you, ask away. And while you are at it, try to see if you can give me some answers to impress me that you actually have something to add to the discussion rather than just reviewing me, which is essentially off topic. And please - no secrets

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Ken

Thanks for asking, R&D. My interest is in cutting sharpening stones. The composition of these stones varies from mud or clay based to ceramic based to various natural stones with varying levels and grit sizes of abrasives in the stones, typically aluminum oxide or various forms of silicon carbide, with stone sizes typically 8 x 3 inches but going as large as say 8 x 4 x 3 inches or even 12 x 6 x 1 inches.

These stones can be quite expensive. Cheaper ones might be $10-25 each whereas some of the stones that are say 8 x 3 x 3/4 inches might cost about $650. There are other even more exotic stones that go considerably higher in price. Some stones only 1/2 inch thick need to be cut into 5mm thick slices.

So the blade thickness is a substantial consideration in terms of yield after cutting. The material that is lost due to blade thickness will determine the profitability of doing this.

Where I can compromise is feed rates. I'm not in a hurry to cut up a pile of these stones, so I can bring the material through the saw slowly which I'm hoping will minimize warpage. But obviously warpage will cause a wider cut and more material loss making a thinner blade counterproductive.

So in instances where I don't need deeper cuts, a thin blade like the Raimondi T3 seems good up to the depth where it becomes thicker in the middle - where this hybrid design seems the best of both worlds - thin kerf and reduced warpage.

Some of my cuts will involve going through 3+ inches of material and cutting off 5mm thick slices, sometimes with stones only 10 mm thick. I'm building some jigs to help do this as I'm not interested in working with pieces where my fingertips are mm away from the blade. I'm feeling comfortable about doing this but using the stock blade that comes with the saw - well I should be able to do better.

It doesn't seem that glass blades have a thinner kerf than some of the thinner blades for cutting stone - like the MK225 or hotdog blade, although some may have a higher grit density with a finer grade of diamonds impregnated into the matrix which does seem desirable. Ultimately I may have to be concerned a bit more with the interplay of the matrix with the abrasive content of what I'm cutting, but so far this doesn't seem to be a problem. It may with some stones eg 24 grit silicon carbide stones, but not with other stones that are primarily ultrafine grit aluminum oxides in a magnesia based substrate. A lot of the stones I'll be cutting will be using a ceramic based substrate, so it looks like porcelain cutting blades would be appropriate.

I'll also be cutting some glass, but the float glass that I'm cutting isn't real critical in terms of needing thin kerfs and so forth. I could get a specific blade for this but it doesn't seem necessary. If I've got this wrong, I'd like to know. But this is a separate issue than my primary focus of cutting stone with minimal losses.

I'd love to be able to cut tempered glass, but from what I know so far, including my and other's attempts to do this, it seems doomed to failure. If anyone knows how to cut tempered glass without it shattering, I'd certainly like to know.

So you guys are the obvious experts on using blades with diamond saws - you have real world experience. You are also familiar with the brands available and how they perform. If you say warpage is going to be a problem with all brands of blades below a certain kerf size, that's what I want to know. Specifically at what thinness will I hit a problem with warpage for the types of material I'm cuttng. I'm interested in your best guesses, since the material I'm cutting is a bit different but similar enough to what you guys cut all the time.

Now I came across this company, ukam blades. Their specs mention a really thin blade at 0.040 inches or 1 mm for a 10 inch blade with 7mm of diamond material on the blade. They are on their website at http://www.ukam.com/diamond_tile_blades.htm. I don't know if these guys make something people here have used. It may be of use to you, but if you have comments on what they seem to be offering, I'd like to know.

If there's other brands or companies to consider that I'm not aware of pleaase let me know. It seems MK has some lapidary blades available so if anyone has used them I'd like to know how it worked out. I'll probably need to go to a lapidary blog for this, but it's worth a shot asking here. I think a problem I may come across with lapidary saws and blades is a requirement to use something other than water to cut with - cutting oils, etc. That's a deal killer for me, since the stones I cut absolutely can't have contact with anything other than plain water.

I know I'm one odd duck of a stone cutter here, so I appreciate your patience in working with me to give me a bit of insight and sharing some knowledge. Hopefully I can return the favor.

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Ken

Well I thought I'd update this thread too. I wound up with a blade that is 40 thousandths thick and cuts my stones - and glass too. Within the limits of the accuracy of the jigs I built, I'm getting clean cuts usually with a thickness variance of a few hundredths of an inch. The saw stays dead on, but the laser light is a total waste of time so I don't use it anymore. Here's a pic or two of my results. Going counterclockwise they range from a 120 grit to 15,000 grit stones

http://www.kenss.com/knives/stonecutter/stones120to15ksmall.jpg



and a few specialty shapes;

for serrated edges and some work I do under a microscope.

http://www.kenss.com/knives/stonecutter/king1200shapes.jpg



Again, I appreciate the help that the helpful members have given me on this forum. I sell these stones, so if anyone has any sharpening needs, either for specialty stones or sharpening, send me a PM.

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Ken