Arkansas stone woes.

[cosperryan]

So I have to put my dog down. He's a two year old red nose pit and I love him to death, but he broke my trans black arkie. My finest finisher. So like the ways of old yeller he has to go. Just kidding of course but this really does suck.

I have a couple of the primitive arkies from dans but they need to be flattened and burnished and on the black stone it needs to be squared off. So what my real question is, is what is the best method to square of the sides and a hard black ark. I have a professional tile saw but which type of blade would be best for this application considering the stones density.

[10Pups]

Leave it in the back yard a couple of days. The pit should round off the corners by then :<0) This Smart ask remark because I have no answer about the blade except I would think a smooth one would be best. The other would work faster but may leave more scratches and may even chip. I don't know your stone but I know some about blades.

[cosperryan]

Leave it in the back yard a couple of days. The pit should round off the corners by then :<0) This Smart ask remark because I have no answer about the blade except I would think a smooth one would be best. The other would work faster but may leave more scratches and may even chip. I don't know your stone but I know some about blades.

Yeah I was leaning towards a continuous edge I wonder if a smaller diameter would be better because it would spin faster and possibly cause less chipping.

[JimmyHAD]

Perhaps gluing with a waterproof epoxy ? Just a thought. The hone guy at Japan Tool told me he has glued broken synthetic stones.

[Wid]

I used a dremel with a sanding drum to smooth the edges off my primitive black, it works great.

[DaveW]

Angle grinder, sponge, cheap diamond blade. Try it on another piece of rock a few times (like a random piece of slate or field stone or anything else cheap you might have outside).

It's messy. The sponge should be loaded with water and held against the diamond blade to keep the dust down.

If you don't want to do the sponge, absolute must to have a dust mask on fitted properly, it's not stuff you want to breathe in.

A couple of years ago, I got a $7.50 6" diamond blade or whatever size the small angle grinders are, and I've used it to cut a bathroom full of porcelain tiles and several hones.

(I also worked for a tile contractor years ago and we used one inside with a wet sponge and had no issues with dust or anything).

Then just round the edge over with a diamond hone.

Bummer on the dog busting a good hone.

[eKretz]

Arks are pretty tough on a diamond blade - especially on a tile saw, as they run faster (nearly twice the speed in many cases) than a normal lapidary/rock saw. Using oil in the saw for coolant rather than water would be preferable. One stone might be OK with water and might not. The reason for this is that the diamonds in the blade are embedded in a soft metal matrix. If the periphery gets too hot, the metal matrix will melt or plastic flow and cover the diamonds so that they do a lot more rubbing than cutting. You'll know pretty quick if this happens because you'll need a hell of a lot more force to cut and the blade will tend to wander off from centered/true cutting.