Sage Grinder Safety Advice....Guard Related....

[John fisher <artisti@zzzzzzzzzzzz>]

I never use the guard on my diamond blades as I cut using the whole surface
of the blade. The standard approach to cutting stone is to cut a series of
parallel cuts, the depth of the blade, and then to knock the cut strips off
with a pitching tool. I guess if you are working that way a guard would not
be a problem. But most of the time I am cutting an entire plane of my
sculpture. I sight down the disk and put it on the plane I want to cut and
proceed laying the entire blade on the surface of the sculpture. For this
reason a guard would prevent me from doing this. To do this work it is
important that the nut holding the disk onto the grinder be flush with the
blade. Sometimes you need to find the right spacers to bring the blade up to
the right height or grind off the top of the threads of the grinder that
stick out from the nut holding on the disk.

I have had the grinder buck on me and once it jammed. I had been drilling
and splitting with Feather and wedges. When I started to pound in the wedges
it seemed that the split was about to go in the wrong direction. I decided
to cut a groove under and beneath the split to try and stop it from
happening. When I did that, it work, and released the tension immediately
causing the split to happen while I was cutting. The split section came down
on my disk and stopped it cold. It yanked my arm for sure but nothing else
happened. The disk was not damaged and neither was the grinder. Cutting
limestone with a diamond disk is not advised as the limestone can gum up. It
is too soft.

artisti