180mm turbo blades vs 180mm porcelain continuous rim blade.

[Sean Kelly]

Alan from ATS Diamond tools sent me a couple of blades to test. I purposely did not check out their individual prices as I did not want to be influenced.

The attached pictures are of the cuts made by each blade.
Porcelain
Large ceramic tile (Padova)
Cheap white wall tile
Travertine




The continuous rim blade (the blue one on the left) went through each tile like a knife through butter. No sticking, and effortless cutting. This is a thin blade and it gave good cuts with minimal chipping. To the naked eye the chipping is not that bad, it just looks bad when you zoom into the attached pics.

The turbo blade (the black one) needed a bit more of a push to get the tile cut. This is quite a thick blade and it ‘crunched’ its way through the tiles. This blade did a bit more damage to the tile i.e. noticeable chipping on the ceramic tiles.

With some blades there is a bedding in period. Some new blades will chip tiles, but with continued use the chipping gets less and less. I do not know how these blades will perform in the future as I have only been using them for a few days. I tend to use a wet cutter for window reveals and use an angle grinder for all other cuts.

My vote goes to the ATS continuous rim blade. It just felt better and gave better results.

 

[Stef]

I need a new blade for the grinder & was going to try one from Alan..
The best blade by far I have had for a grinder is a montolit pro-gres.

 

[Sean Kelly]

I need a new blade for the grinder & was going to try one from Alan..
The best blade by far I have had for a grinder is a montolit pro-gres.

I usually use the Marcrist CK850, but have bought one of Alan's 115mm turbo blade for the grinder. The CK850 has not worn out yet so have not had a chance to try the turbo.

 

[Stef]

I usually use the Marcrist CK850, but have bought one of Alan's 115mm turbo blade for the grinder. The CK850 has not worn out yet so have not had a chance to try the turbo.

I used to use a CK850 but its not as good as a pro-gres.
I'm for trying one from Alan to see if they are any good.

 

[Sean SML Tiling]

Ive been using ats 115 turbo blade for a while amd it performs good. Also got the monty pro gres amd find lts goes through porcelain alot quicker

 

[Gazzer]

Ive been using ats 115 turbo blade for a while amd it performs good. Also got the monty pro gres amd find lts goes through porcelain alot quicker

Big price difference though ?

 

[Sean SML Tiling]

Yes unfortunately. Cant fault ats blades for the money

 

[Concrete guy]

Thanks Sean, really helpful.

We like the continuous rim blades, they are providing similar results to products that are over 5 times the price, are stock products for us and sell at a steady rate.

We suffer a little from people looking at the prices and assuming they are "too cheap" and can't possibly be any good. That's a tough one for us to get over

The turbo blade we sent was a test item, we keep getting asked for turbo blades for wet cutters but I'm not seeing the advantage of them so far.

Turbo certainly cuts better dry on a grinder, but when it comes to wet cutting continuous rim still seems to provide the best degree of finish. Neale came to the same conclusion when he ran a test on the Dewalt D24000.

We're finding these turbo blades have niche uses, we supply a similar blade to this to a large UK quartz worktop manufacturer for dry cutting quartz slab.

For tiles, I just don't think you can beat continuous rim if you're looking for a one type cuts all blade for your wet machine. Dry then the turbo blades come into their own.

 

[area tiling]

I need a new blade for the grinder & was going to try one from Alan..
The best blade by far I have had for a grinder is a montolit pro-gres.

You'll not get much better than a pro gres blade. , quality blades !

 

[peteablard]

I use the turbo blade in my grinder and for the price it's superb. It needed a short amount of time to bed in but after that it was spot on. One of my subbies was using it a couple of weeks ago and commented on how clean the cut was, He couldn't believe it when I said how much it was.