I got a fairly good price on this saw ($80). I have it home, need to plug it in and test it out. Looks intact. One question I have is there seems to be oil in the reservoir instead of water. Any idea what type of oil is needed to run the thing? How do I tell if the diamond blade needs replacing?
I've used one ages ago and it had soluble oil in the tank: a mix of mineral oil and an emulsifier that make a white milky liquid in appearance. If the water has all dried out then the soluble oil looks like mineral oil in appearance, try adding some water to the oil in the reservoir and see if it goes milky. Industrial supply shops sell soluble oil with long life additives but you can make your own using lechithin oil as the emulsifier. Also the Coburn glass lens grinding lathe I operated, used soluble oil as well, it would have some interesting growths in the tank after 6 months, sort of a flat brain-like jelly growth . Water is considered perfectly acceptable, but I've read in a recent book on industrial grinding that water coolant can cause thermal shock to the diamond particles and shorten the life of them compared to oil flood coolant which would be extremely messy in the home environment. The diamond blade should readily cut into a piece of quartz rock when fed by hand and with water coolant the blade, if it can't cut the rock the blade is worn out: a new blade will eat into quartz easily (Moh's 10 vs Moh's hardness 8 for quartz) .Those spindle bearings are a common commodity item, not really super precision but cheap enough, hopefully there's a grease nipple somewhere on them. How does the rock vise move?, the one I used was advanced towards the blade with a motor driven screw very slowly, so it could run unattended.
Water may have just separated out to the bottom too so try giving it a stir. I use some petroleum solvents that have emulsifiers added to allow it to mix with water. It turns white but will separate overnight. Pete
I'd have to think that they sell coolant for the saws currently on the market.. why not just buy some?
It needs to do two things: take away heat and flush the grit out of the saw cut to keep the cut clean and prevent blade jams. Mineral oil is not generally good for your skin, or inhaling the fine mist spray, although solvent refined stuff like baby oil or food grade paraffin would probably work. Is there an online manual for that machine or something similar?.
I got some mineral oil (it is used for lapidary saws/rock saws). I also bought a new 8" diamond blade just to be sure. Mineral oil does turn milky colored when it has a lot of air or dust mixed in with it, so perhaps that's what you saw? It smells like the guy was using diesel as a lubricant, which is one of the possible lubricants you can use in a rock saw but would definitely not be my first choice. I have no idea how you'd get the smell of it out of your cut rock. One thing I don't understand is the saw has a piece of wood inside the oil reservoir that has a spring attached to it and a threaded rod next to it with a turn knob that can be turned to lower or raise the wood inside the tank. I have no idea what the function of this would be or why it is there. Any ideas? Maybe it raises the oil level in the tank? I'm confused.
No idea on what the wood block is for, any instructions online for it?. Kerosene is used as a lubricant and smells pretty close to diesel, I have seen it used as a diamond saw lubricant and the rock will need lots of cleaning afterwards. The product I was referring to is "Soluble oil" which gets mixed with water according to the brand's instructions. I used it on the glass lens grinding lathe with diamond cup wheels to generate spherical curves in glass. It's mostly used in the metal industries for machining a variety of metals and for grinding metals but it works fine on diamond tooling: http://wsdodgeoil.com/soluble-oils/
I also would like to mount the motor directly behind the machine, to make the base more compact, not off to the side like it is now. If it's an AC motor can I just hook the lead up the opposite direction and have it rotate the motor the other way around? I was between diesel and kerosene when sniffing at it, it's old and mixed with oil and rock so I'm unsure which. I'm looking forward to having it all set up and cutting rocks. I'm going to make rock slabs to set a ring with it. And cast the ring of course.
The proper use of coolant would be a mixture of water soluble oil. The cheaper brands of water soluble oil end up looking milky. The more expensive types will have a blueish tinge. But, in either situation, they are mixed at a ratio of 4-18%. This is dependent upon usage and evaporation. I use proper coolant on all my cutting machines. Here's a little video. My band saw and cylindrical grinder and surface grinder have dedicated pumps and pitts/reservoirs. My Milling machine and lathe I just use a ketchup bottle. The nice thing is, when all the water evaporates the oil is still there to lubricate and prevent corrosion. This could be hours later or days later.
As for when to need to replace the diamond blade… If you're seeing a lot sparks that is an early sign. The other one is when your curf is less than 0.005" per Side. Traditionally, the curf should easily be 0.040" per side brand new.
