G. Murdoch
02-01-2006, 12:25 PM
Greetings all,
As mentioned in another post, I recently aquired a nice piece of white marble (Colorado Yule). I put a fresh diamond blade on my 7" grinder (segmented, sintered) and watched in frustrated fascination as it 'danced' on the surface, not cutting at all. These blades I have been using for years and have found them effective for dry cutting and grinding soapstone, alabaster, sandstone, granite, and the previous piece of marble. So what the hell is going on!? I went to Protech Diamond Tools, my favorite local supplier, and while I didn't get a satisfactory answer to why my sintered blades were ineffective, I did walk away with 5" & 6" blades they assured me would work well dry cutting the marble. They were right.
Up until now the two technologies available (to my knowledge) for attaching diamond grit to metal were:
Electroplating - very cheap, effective for hand tools, but used at high speed on hard stone, useless after about 10 seconds.
Sintering - initially more expensive (prices have come down). Involves diamond grit in a mixture of metals, laser welded onto a blade, bit etc. Much longer life (especially at machine speed).
This new technology is Vacuum lock (or something like that, there is a language barrier involved). The blades look electroplated (diamond grit visibly sitting proud of the metal surface). I have been using them now for perhaps 15 hours each and they are both holding up well. Dry cutting, dry grinding a stone that none of my other blades could touch. The blades are pricey but worth every dime. I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of a wider variety of burrs and bits.
Graham
As mentioned in another post, I recently aquired a nice piece of white marble (Colorado Yule). I put a fresh diamond blade on my 7" grinder (segmented, sintered) and watched in frustrated fascination as it 'danced' on the surface, not cutting at all. These blades I have been using for years and have found them effective for dry cutting and grinding soapstone, alabaster, sandstone, granite, and the previous piece of marble. So what the hell is going on!? I went to Protech Diamond Tools, my favorite local supplier, and while I didn't get a satisfactory answer to why my sintered blades were ineffective, I did walk away with 5" & 6" blades they assured me would work well dry cutting the marble. They were right.
Up until now the two technologies available (to my knowledge) for attaching diamond grit to metal were:
Electroplating - very cheap, effective for hand tools, but used at high speed on hard stone, useless after about 10 seconds.
Sintering - initially more expensive (prices have come down). Involves diamond grit in a mixture of metals, laser welded onto a blade, bit etc. Much longer life (especially at machine speed).
This new technology is Vacuum lock (or something like that, there is a language barrier involved). The blades look electroplated (diamond grit visibly sitting proud of the metal surface). I have been using them now for perhaps 15 hours each and they are both holding up well. Dry cutting, dry grinding a stone that none of my other blades could touch. The blades are pricey but worth every dime. I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of a wider variety of burrs and bits.
Graham