Lapidary / Gemstone Community Forum

I purchased a used 24" slab saw and after much cleaning and rewiring of the unit, I am ready to try it. I have cutting oil to add, but do not know how much to use. I am guessing I need to add enough to cover the bottom of the blade, but how much of the bottom would you suggest?

1/4 to 1/2 inch should be enough.

Thank you, Travelerga! Have a wonderful holiday!

I now that Travelerga is correct, but I do cover mine to one inch.

Have you decided on an oil ?

I have had good luck with mineral oil.

At present I am using a mineral oil for animals,it is 14.00 a gallon. you can also go to an air conditioning supply hoiuse and gety the mineral oil they se for R-22 freon but it is about 25.00 a gallon.

George if I run my saw with an inch of blde covered it foams like liquid soap in a dishwasher,,,,, whoooo whoooo lol

I will be using a mineral oil from Shell. A 55 gallon drum came with the saw with about 48 gallons left. Most excited to give it a try!

Me too....   :)

I will have to try some of the Mineral Oil for animals ... where do you find it?

I tried the Covington Oil and it makes me break-out in a rash. I have since settled on the oil called Roc-Oil but it runs about $23 a gallon + shipping. It works without the rash, so I pay the price. In order to use less oil I put a silicon bead around the bottom on the saw pan and use it to kepp a set of bricks stationary. It's not to hold oil, it keeps the bricks from moving due to vibration. The bricks save me just under a gallon of oil on a refill.

(https://gemstone.smfforfree4.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theimage.com%2Fapubimages%2Fbigsaw.jpg&hash=28c0ef7cc695b8080ac32c42877a962a)

The rock vice and slide mechanism is not sow so the bottom of pan can be seen.

I find mine at our local Feed store. It runs about 11.00 a gallon.

When I clean out my saw will be using the brick idea. That will save me as much as a couple gallons.

I do the brick trick withot the silicon.. the horse laxative is nice in the hands too. LOL

I used bricks also until I found the less expensive oil. The club was getting a break on bulk log and shingle oil at a local oil company. Found out it was mostly mineral oil so we get bulk mineral oil for about 6.50 a gallon now.........Bob

Before I knew any better (not that I do now) I used water soluble oil in my trim saw. I mixed it 10 parts water to one part oil. I have been using the same blade for about 6 months and many many rocks. It is the same oil I use for my milling machine and lathe. I bought 5 gallons at about $18 a gallon. Works out to about $1.64 a gallon. I will be using mineral oil for the big slab saw. Just thought I would offer the thought...

I originally did the bricks without the silicon bead, but I found in a few months they often shifted and several times they hit the bottom of the saw. It didn't hurt the saw but messed up a couple of brick pretty well. And when they first make contact they can make quite a noise. I eventually decide to "fence them in".

I don't use the bricks because I want a longer cutting time between oil changes. I recycle the oil by filtering it through a doubled paper bag/bucket arrangement. I can usually recover about 85% of the oil for reuse.
Bob

I do the same thing, I "scoop-out" the bottom of the saw and put the sludge in a couple of nested paper bags. I let the oil run out the bottom through a perforated 5 gal bucket into a second 5 gal bucket. After a few days I put some additional weight on the folded over bags and get some more oil out. After several week I take the remaining sludge and pack it off to the dump inside a couple trash bags. I've never gotten close to 85% recovery, but usually about 50% if it all goes well.

I usually wash the bricks off with a hose and let them sun dry for a couple days while the oil separates.

I bent apiece of expanded metal to form a vee and bought a bunch of old vacuum cleaner bags at the thrift shop. The vee sits in the top of the 5 gal. bucket and the bag sits in the vee. The more often I clean the sludge out the better my oil recovery . I guess because there is less impacted fine slkudge to lock up the oil. Our local stores no longer have a paper bag option so I have not tried them. I hear they are faster..........Bob