Wet saw to cut to 10mm cubes? - TilersForums.com

[Musivarius]

I've never used any mechanical saws before, all my cutting has been with the hammer and hardie up to now. For the my Roman mosaic copies I buy pre cut marble tesserae (tiles), all with a uniform 10mm thickness but an irregular profile.
The finished mosaic looks as if all the tesserae have been hand cut instead of the modern 10mm x 10mm x 10mm cubes and they have been tumbled so no grinding down needed. It would be a whole lot better if I can cut my own, it's cheaper plus I do the quality control.

So.... I can get 98mm x 98mm x 8mm tumbled marble tiles in the colours I need. I cut them into strips varying in width 8mm - 12mm. Then cut the strips into 8mm - 12mm 'cubes'.
Each kilo of marble gets me about 350 tesserae, I need about 7,000 per square metre.

What's the best wet saw for this? I'll try to hire one first to see how I get on. It would also need to cut harder material such as Verde Guatamala.

Bit of a long post but there's only one supplier of this cut and it just occured to me to cut my own rather than getting them in from Italy.

Cheers (I've tried to post an image but I can only get this link)
ROMAN MOSAIC WORKSHOPS - Buy marble

 

[DHTiling]

In all honesty.. the Dewalt D24000 is the best in the uk for bespoke work..

 

[Gazzer]

Ditto what Dave says but i think breakages could be very high cutting that small.

 

[Musivarius]

Do you get breakages across the fault lines in the marble or is there a lot of blade vibration? I know it's hard to judge without having tried it but what do you think might the percentage of breakages be?

 

[DHTiling]

If he tops it with the Montolit DNA blade then maybe not... i have been trimming 600x400 x 32mm thick travertine pavers to size and i was cutting 3mm slithers of without breaking them..

 

[DHTiling]

Do you get breakages across the fault lines in the marble or is there a lot of blade vibration? I know it's hard to judge without having tried it but what do you think might the percentage of breakages be?

Blade vibration is virtually Zero..

If you are close enough to tradetilers unit he has one set up yo can try..

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[doug boardley]

If he tops it with the Montolit DNA blade then maybe not... i have been trimming 600x400 x 32mm thick travertine pavers to size and i was cutting 3mm slithers of without breaking them..

I've had similar size slither cuts when I've had a new cpc blade in my DW200LP cutter.

 

[DHTiling]

32mm thick doug..?

 

[Gazzer]

The marble i was cutting recently was pretty cheap stuff so i wasnt having much joy although i wasnt in need of small slithers.
Travertine i have used recently presented no promblems and as Dave said 3mm slithers were coming off clean....I guess the quality of the stone will be a major factor

 

[Musivarius]

Thanks! I get this going at it will make a real difference to my business.
Waiting for supplies to come in, getting small orders and having to ask the customer to wait until I get a bigger order to cut on the shipping costs, it has been a real pain.