I am going to tile three bathrooms in my home so I am going to purchase a low end wet saw. I see the local home improvement stores have them in the $75 to $100 range They are 7" and I believe 3/4 hp.I also saw one for $100 (1 hp) at harborfreight. . I am also going to lay granite tile in another room. Would these wet saw's be able to cute granite? The granite tile will be all straight cuts and not to many tiles will need cutting.
Thanks
Horse power is not as important as the type of blade. Both will do the job as long as you have a diamond blade. I have the hd unit and have done 3 homes with Italian tile. LOTS of cuts. I believe I am on the second blade. Mine was made in Britain and there are NO absolutely NO way to buy spare parts anywhere except hd if they can even get them. I contacted the company for an new blade holder. I had to get a guy to machine one for me. I am not saying it is a bad saw. Mine still works very well.
Trick is to keep the water clean and let the saw do the work. You might find like I did that the fence really do not work as well as a table saw. Gee one is plastic and the other is metal, that is a shock. I rarely use the fence any more I draw a pencil line, and cut free hand. Probably takes a bit more time but I am not in production mode when I am doing this. Check the arbor holes and see if you can buy your blades at HF. I had to drill the blades out that I bought from HF a tad to fit the saw. Get a full face shield and safety glasses, helps to have a warm day and be out on the grass some where. You will be taking a bath in the water-granite mixture. Dress in old clothes that can possibly be thrown away, sure do not want to put that in momma's washer. Please have a local gfci for the saw. Water, electricity, human could be a recipe for disaster.
Thanks for the info, it is very helpful. I would never have thought about the parts issue. I used a wet saw last week and it worked great (for ceramic) I just wanted to make sure it would work on granite.
And make sure you can actually change the blade. Had a PlasPlugs saw = one time, worked fine. Went to change the blade and doing so was an = impossibility...no way to hold the arbor while taking off the nut. The = arbor wasn't keyed to the blade so holding the blade would just let the = arbor spin. The blade was chock-a-block to the case on the motor side = so no arbor to grab. Dumb...
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The big 10" diamond blades cut it splendidly. HF has the big saw for $200 on sale. It is all about the quality of the blade. I would expect the smaller saws with diamond blades to work, subject to their usual limitations.
Marble, ceramic, granite, it all looks like marshmallow to a diamond blade.
The usual trick is to temporarily jam the motor by inserting a wood dowel in a cooling slot. Or file flats on the end of the shaft, and grasp with adjustable end wrench.
With a good diamond blade you can cut granite. Horsepower means very little--I'd much rather have a quality blade. Blade diameter determines depth of cut. Beware HF has the lowest quality tools (made in China or Taiwan) I've ever seen.
I agree that they are not to pro standards here in the states. I buy their insulated screw driver sets and when I loose one I throw the rest into the bag at home and buy another set. I have tested them with the high voltage test sets at work and they pass the same standard as Klein for 1/10 the price. I test all my insulated tools 3 times a year. Paranoid I guess, been a sparky for 35 years and can still talk about it. I have their < $100 chop saw. Sure not as fast as a Milwaukee or others. I have built 30 some odd gates and other metal projects with it. Runs fine for me. I have their small wire feed welder. I can run beads and if I need more then I will take the pieces to someone that has "more power". I think HF stuff is fine for the average HO who uses the equipment 4-5 times a year if that much.
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