cutting sandstone

[Norman Watts <Norman_Watts@zzzzzzz>]

its been my experience that when buying blades for cutting stone, the
softer the stone, the harder the matrix, the harder the stone the
softer the matrix, because cutting a harder stone requires new
diamonds to be exposed more quickly to continue the cutting action,
the softer stones, because of their make up don't require the
exposure of new diamonds as quickly as a harder stone does, keeping
in mind that there is usually a varying degree of hardness within a
single piece of stone, alot of the time its a trial and error process
to match blades to stone, and everybody usually has a method that
they find works best for them

Sorry for the longish quote from Shawn, but he has raised several
points. I was very interested to hear what people's thoughts would be
on this topic because I'm just starting to learn about the
considerations that go into buying blades. Given that they cost so
much experimenting is not something I can afford to do a lot of, so
it would be nice to get it right from the start. I'm surprised that
the matrix-vs-stone issue even is an issue. Surely industry must have
figured this out by now and after so much empirical evidence I would
think there is no room left for opinion, philosophies or guessing at
mechanisms. Is my assumption wrong? As for matching blades to stone,
is there really experimentation? When I look in the Granquartz
catalog or on the web, I see blades as either recommended for hard
stones like granite, or not. I've never seen any discussion of
various matrices of intermediate hardness that might be more or less
suitable for certain types of stone.  Do different manufacturers use
different matrices and you have to try and see how good they actually
are? Any more opinions out there?

n