Message #205586

[finegemdesigns]

You generally get what you pay for. My one complaint with Covington is with my 16" slab saw.

I bought the budget model instead of more expensive and the vise has aluminum instead of all steel components. This meant that after a few years some of the aluminum parts had wear so bad I had to retrofit the unit.

My Lortone LS-10 also had a similar problem with aluminum vise parts.

My Covington 4 wheel grinding unit is awesome though and no problems at all for many years of use.

I understand the space issue since when I started in my 20's I lived in a studio apartment and slept in my living room. My lapidary setup was on my kitchen table. But even then I still had a separate trim saw and grinding setup. But my grinding was done on a used Prismatic 8" faceting machine not vertical wheels.

This was back when I was cutting quartz handpieces for the metaphysical market.