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I'm trying to find a better way to cut my rosette tiles than a bandsaw. I'm toying around with buying one of the micro table saws, however I'm wondering if I can modify my table saw to do the job. Basically I need to use as thin a kerf blade as possible to save material from the tiles. I have the 6" fret cutting blade and stiffeners from LMI, however in order to use the blade for rosette tiles, I would have to remove the stiffeners. Would the 6" blade cut smooth and true or would there be too much flex in the blade? It would only need to cut through veneer sandwiches 8-9 mm thick. I'm thinking if I make a new throat plate for the saw, I might be able to use the LMI blade without the stiffeners. Any thoughts? If you dont recommend the LMI blade, are there any other alternatives out there for a thin kerf blade (< 1mm) on my table saw?

Thanks!

John

MSC has tons of blades in all kerfs...

The big factor here will be how well balanced and true the arbor on your saw is. Only you know the answer to that.

If the arbor is true and well balanced9and the whole saw runs smoothly), then you likely can get away with 3" stiffeners on a 5-6" blade, leaving you plenty of cut.

I was thinking the same thing as Mario. Lee Valley has 3-1/2" stiffeners, and I think the LMI blade is 6" dia so that leaves you with lots of room (1-1/4" minus the sled) to cut you sandwich.

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I'd avoid using the fret slotting blade, though(forgot to mention that...)

The fret slotting blade doesn't have enough set to the teeth, and will burn when going through your sandwhich. Get another blade, and if you have to, you can set the teeth on it to work better.

John,

The last 3 guitars i built I used segmented rings for the rosettes. I made up a simple sled with the angle for how many segments I wanted and used the 40 tooth Freud Diablo 7 1/2" blade.No stiffeners. The blade was around $20 at Home Depot.Its a thi kerf blade. I don't know the dimensions right off hand. The segments came out very clean and true. Glued them up right off the saw. Some of the thicknesses I was cutting were about 1/8".Jimmie D38746.7725578704

The kerf on my fret blade is very thin (.60mm) which is important because I'm cutting off long strips from my veneer sandwiches at .025". It takes a really long time to make all the sandwiches and tiles, so losing more to the kerf than the actual tile is tough. It's also really important to not have any flex in the blade because if the veneer sandwiches aren't perfect, the pattern will be off in the tile.

Mario...what is teeth set? Do you think it will burn such light material as soft veneer?

John

You definitely can't use the LMI blade without stiffeners. It will wander
badly. As mentioned above, use stiffeners that will allow enough depth of
cut. The blade that JimmieD suggested (Freud Diablo) will take too thick a
kerf and waste too much of your rosette material. An X-Acto razor saw
will waste the least amount of material. Simply make a small miter box
and clamp a stop in it to determine the thickness of your rosette tiles.
Low tech and works just fine.
Craig

   The Stew-Mac blade shouldn't need stiffners.

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Maybe this would work for you. Simple & cheap.

http://www.ares-server.com/Ares/Ares.asp?MerchantID=RET01229 &Action=Catalog&Type=Product&ID=14568

Ooops, after rereading the original post I realize the authir wants to cut 'tiles'. My link is for a tool to cut the strips to make the tiles. Sorry. I think the Exacto Razor saw and mitre box is the easiest solution. I've seen little aluminum boxes for them at OSH.

CrowDuckcrowduck38747.9084953704

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Chris Nielsen
Soquel, CA.

I tried your link but couldn't get it to work. I also need to cut the long strips to make the logs so I'm very interested to see whatever method you have. The exacto knife obviously won't be any help in cutting the long strips. Thanks btw for all the suggestions here.

Cheers!

John

On another forum I saw that someone was using a pasta cutting machine to cut veneer into long strips. I believe they would lightly wet the veneer to keep it from splitting. I think it was Grant that did that, could be mistaken however.

I bought a pasta cutter on ebay just for this but haven't tried it yet. Different blades yield different sized strips supposedly.

As to the blocks what about a jig on the band saw?

OOps just saw your comment about the band saw...

RCoates38747.9634259259

John,

Sorry about the bad link. Try this one to Micro Mark and enter item #14568   $8.95 Wood Strip Cutter

http://www.micromark.com/

It's for cutting balsa strips, but says the #24 blade will cut harder woods. I just ordered one. And while you're there checkout the "Specials" for the Angle Guage/Protractor at $4.95, and the Laser-Beam Level for $9.95. These things are 1/2 price, and their shipping prices is a flat $8.95 for $50 purchase, so I ordered them too. MM will probabley have that little miter box & razor saw as well. I got the Wood Strip Cutter thinking that I might be able to modify it to cut binding/purfling channels like a Gramil..........for $9 it's worth a shot, and will come in handy for something I'm sure.
Hope this helps.

CrowDuck

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Chris Nielsen
Soquel, CA.

I don't think the pasta cutter will work. The way rosette tiles are made is 1.) glue up a bunch of veneer strips in the correct order of each row of tiles.



2.) Then each log gets a 1-2 mm strip cut lengthwise from each log.



3.) The strips are then glued together to make the final log which the tiles are cut from.



The Micro-mark tool may work, I'm just not sure if it can cut consistently at 10-12 mm thick through the epoxy glued veneer (it is pretty hard). I think my best option may still be an ultra fine kerf blade with some supports.

Thanks again though for all the suggestions.

John

John,

I don't think the wood strip tool will work, but Micro Mark has a Micro Lux 4" saw that will do the job. It's expensive though at $300 or more, but they have a variety of thin kerf blades for it. Another idea might be to find a used Dremel 4" table saw. I got one off eBay for about $150. It's not as nice and accurate as the Micro Lux, but with some work improving the fence can do the job. Micro Mark carries some blades for the Dremel table saw as well as does Harbor Freight. If you want more info on these just let me know.

BTW, there's a Dremel 580 table saw on eBay now, here's the link:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Dremel-580-4in-Table-Saw-w-accessories-i nstructions_W0QQitemZ7586131862QQcategoryZ20789QQrdZ1QQcmdZV iewItem


CrowDuckcrowduck38748.0961111111

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Chris Nielsen
Soquel, CA.