Rodding Tips

[Terry Roberts]

I use fiberglass rodding on all sink cutouts. It takes forever and a lot of force to cut the channel in the back side of the stone. It's the hardest part of fabrication for me. I use a Makita skill saw on a track. I've tried rodding blades without much improvement but what I've been using lately is 2 - 8" turbo blades stacked and dress the blades after every pass. it takes me half an hour to do one counter with multiple passes. I know rodding is not used by a lot of fabricators but I feel more confident using it.

[Brian Briggs]

First run a regular turbo blade through, then do the rodding blade. You will see a Huge and when I say Huge I mean really Huge (LOL, could not resist). Difference. It will cut faster and the blade will last longer. This also applies to T-31 anchor bits

[Kowboy]

Terry:

All shop operations have to be evaluated for cost effectiveness. You are investing a half an hour and materials in lowering your risk for breaking tops. For the sake of figuring, let's say each top costs you $50.00 to rod. Let's say you invest $660.00 in two of the 8' Omni Sink Hole Savers and stop rodding. As soon as you pass 13.2 hours/materials, you've paid for the OSHS and now they are paying you. With the exception of particularly delicate stones and/or configurations, rodding is old school and obsolete. Cabinets provide all the needed strength in tension stone doesn't have when properly installed.

[Omni Cubed Larry]

First run a regular turbo blade through, then do the rodding blade. You will see a Huge and when I say Huge I mean really Huge (LOL, could not resist). Difference. It will cut faster and the blade will last longer. This also applies to T-31 anchor bits

That is a great tip. I never thought of doing that for T-31 bits too.

Hi Terry, I just noticed you are practically in our back yard. Give me a call if you have any questions.

[Terry Roberts]

That's a great tip. I'll try that. Thanks

[BReynolds]

alpha air saw with two blades stacked together, we only cut about a 1/4" wide channel. Takes maybe 3 min to cut both slots and that is with measuring out and drawing a line on the top to follow. You will need ALOT of air to run this saw though and a 3/8" dedicated air line run to it.

[Rick George]

These blades are basically exactly what Brandon is talking about but already welded together with a gap for slurry and stone removal. They are available in 4" and 5" sizes...

https://www.wehausa.com/Granite-Rodding ... /50289.htm

[Steve A]

Terry:

All shop operations have to be evaluated for cost effectiveness. You are investing a half an hour and materials in lowering your risk for breaking tops. For the sake of figuring, let's say each top costs you $50.00 to rod. Let's say you invest $660.00 in two of the 8' Omni Sink Hole Savers and stop rodding. As soon as you pass 13.2 hours/materials, you've paid for the OSHS and now they are paying you. With the exception of particularly delicate stones and/or configurations, rodding is old school and obsolete. Cabinets provide all the needed strength in tension stone doesn't have when properly installed.

Very valid point, and may work for some. But by not means is rodding obsolete. Sink savers are great don't get me wrong, but they do not work in every situation. They can not be in place at all times either. You can't work the edge of a stone with a sink saver on. How many should I buy? 100? That would be a very LARGE investment. Its rare that I'm slow enough to be working on only a couple tops at a time. Perfectly installed cabinets only exist in a perfect world. Even cabinets that are properly installed can/will settle over time and put the stone at risk.

[crobb]

alpha air saw with two blades stacked together, we only cut about a 1/4" wide channel. Takes maybe 3 min to cut both slots and that is with measuring out and drawing a line on the top to follow. You will need ALOT of air to run this saw though and a 3/8" dedicated airline run to it.

This! We've tried many different ways and this is by far the cheaper, fastest and easiest way to rod. We have used both the new Alpha PSC-150 pneumatic skill-saw, which does use an absolutely ludicrous amount of air, as well as the Alpha AWS-125 Electric 5" skill-saw. Both yield amazing results when running two inexpensive 5" blades stacked. We can have a piece with two sink cut-outs rodded in well under 5 minutes.

Our experienced guys just mark out the length of their cuts but we have made some guides from 2cm quartz for the newbies to clamp to the piece.