Thread: Lucas Mill Cutting Stone

Wow

I would have thought the TCT cutter would be blunt pretty quickly .

Originally Posted by dai sensei

Wow

I would have thought the TCT cutter would be blunt pretty quickly .

Stone cutters down here use tungsten tipped blades all the time to cut ashlers all day every day. Mostly limestone but also dolamite. Evidently it's all about the set of the teeth. I've had one of mine set for stone. Still haven't tried it out yet though. Hopefuly soon.

After reading Rod's post I was going to say "Wow," but Neil beat me to it .

Regards
Paul

ABOUT TIME!!!! is all I can say - I was told they where looking into this almost 2 years ago!!!!!

good to see

TCT blades work fine with limestone, but would only last seconds on Sandstone.

I am currently building a sandstone saw and looked into the possibility of a lucas.
Was told that they cut sandstone in Sth Aus with a tungsten tipped blade. Very soft and at slow speed.
The local stonemason has changed his segmented diamond saw blade to include a granite tip every 3rd segment. Very hard. High quartz content.
So I guess it could still be done, but blade selection would be paramount to success.
The blade for my saw gives a kerf of 5.5mm, so in theory it could be fitted to a lucas. At 2K a hit though, you'd want to get it right.
My blade is 36" dia and needs to spin at 1000rpm so that may also be an issue.

Cheers
Andrew

Just to add a couple more observations, the speed of the revolving blade was consistant with a timber cutting speed but the advancement of the carriage (pushed by operator) as very slow. The motor was kept at high revs during cutting. I would think the operator would regulate the sound of the motor to the advancement of the cut. The blade was a smooth diamond blade about 24" diameter and was just a scaled up version of what you would use to cut tiles with a 115mm angle grinder ( sorry to miss lead you all with my original posting saying it was tungsten, my defense is that I was tied). The saw kerf would be say 8mm. The had water running hard the whole time the blade was cutting. The piece of sandstone in the picture was roughly 450 square X 1000mm long. The blade was cutting at a depth of about 125mm. No dust...but a whole lot of drippy sandstone coloured water.
We here in Moonbi are among big granite boulders. I bought one of those cheap rotary hammer drills that can function as a jack hammer. I tried it out on concrete in jack hammer mode and yes it was quicker than lump hammer and cold chisel but when I tried it on granite.....it was out of its depth!!! I was amased just how tough granite is! If you were considering going into the cutting of stone in a big way, a lot of research would be required to see what is available and just how efficient the cutting machines are.
What struck me most was just how versatile the Lucas set up is. Every time I see a Lucas in the flesh I am always amased at the swing action. Top makes to the first in ventor.

Rod

In a way you have already answered my question as I was going to ask what type of stone they were cutting. Sandstone is relatively soft of course.

I thought I had some sandstone back at the place we used to live at in the Hunter Valley. It looked a bit coarse, but being the eternal optimist I set to and tried to cut it into something useful.

I was quite unable to cut it with 9'angle grinder rigged up to have water cooling the diamond blade. I couldn't drill it with a jack hammer. After 20 mins with the angle grinder I was 10mm deep and 100mm long into the cut. Hopeless . It was in fact a conglomerate and harder than any stone I've tried to cut.

I think that you would have to be very selective in what you attempted with the Lucas, but nevertheless a very versatile option to an already versatile machine.

Now if you happened to have a small marble quarry.......

Regards
Paul

From the developers of the Lucas Stone Cutting Mill seen at Ag Quip 2013. There was approx 100,000 people through the gate over the 3 days and over 500 flyers were taken from my stand at The Land Inventors site. I could not speak to everyone while I was demonstrating, hence the flyers with my email address. Any questions emailed to me will be answered and no assumptions made. It is a professionally built machine with Diamond tipped blade. We demonstrated cutting basalt and sandstone at the same time to show both ends of the spectrum, hard and soft, with accuracy. Over the 3 days we cut 4 tonne of rock with no wear to the blade. The mill runs at the recommended speed of the blade manufacturer.
I hope this answers some questions and you will see more of this machine in the future.
Cheers
John.

I own a lucas mill, a very early 6" one and considered converting it to cut basalt. I found however, that it wouldn't be suitable with regards to speed/blade diameter etc, so I built this instead;
My place: 31, Yay!!!!

I have cut a small amount of local sandstone, (from Aireys Inlet), but find cutting bluestone easier. It is harder, but is less abrasive and gentler on the blade.