Using a router to profile granite edge?

[Jim German]

I think you'd be fine using a spray bottle with a diamond bit in a regular router.

You could get a good bit from someplace like here.

Coruse you could probably have a pro do it for cheaper, but then I'm the type of guy to do it myself anyway.

[Jim Becker]

'Not sure I'd want to be using water alongside of an electric woodworking router...

[Cody Jensen]

People use water with circular saws (not concrete saws, but makeshift concrete saws using a standard circ saw). I wouldn't think that water from the router bit would come anywhere close to the motor, but with any water+electrical combo, common sense is required.

[Peter Kelly]

'Not sure I'd want to be using water alongside of an electric woodworking router...

Not sure I'd use a good router on something as abrasive as granite dust either.

[Erik Christensen]

I have cut profiles in soapstone using a regular router and carbide bit. when it comes to harder stuff like granite or cast concrete you need water cooled diamond tooling - one of the reasons why it is expensive to profile stone is the tooling cost - my 3/4" diamond round-over bit costs ~ $150 and will cut 1-200' of profile before it is worn out.

[Erik Loza]

I sold an MM16 to a gentleman once, whose business was cutting soapstone for arts and crafts. He told me that he used a water sprayers on his bandsaws. I asked him how he prevented everything from rusting. His reply was, "I don't".

Erik

[Tom M King]

I bought some Quartz countertop stuff from a recycling place-Community Forklift in Maryland. One piece is a seat in a shower that's four feet long. The second piece is also four feet long and needed the long edges finished on two long sides and one end. The third piece is 5 feet long and a little shelf behind the sink that needed one edge finished. I carried it to a fabricator. The owner said he didn't have time to think about it, but carry it around back, and just pay his helpers to do it. Those guys, wearing rubber aprons and boots did it in about ten minutes using tools that ran a lot of water through them. I asked then how much and Jose said, 25 bucks. I gave them fifty, and was glad to get it done. I had looked at the tooling to do it myself.

I did cut it to size myself beforehand using the water hose, diamond blade, and cheap circular saw method.

[Yonak Hawkins]

Even if you successfully profiled it, polishing it could be even more of a challenge.

[Anthony Whitesell]

Guess someone else had the same idea.

granite router.jpg

From The Family Handyman e-newsletter today

[Bill ThompsonNM]

I picked up an MK wet tile saw a few years back. When I needed some profiling I found out they make sort of diamond shaping disks for the mk saws.
Worked great, even came out a good polish on the 30 feet of tiles I profiled. You could pick up or rent an edge shaper and rent a tile saw for a couple of hours. They're made to run water over the cutting surface without spraying water on the motor....

Hard to imagine that cutting with the Family Handyman method is going to be good for a router.. Diamonds and granite whirling through that motor and bearings...

[John Blazy]

My main business is glass laminating, and I have to say that diamonds are mans best friend. If I were to do this, I would see no problem with the diamond bit in a common router method with manual water spray like suggested above by most of you. The big difference is that I would use a variable speed router, and run RPMS down to about 8000, not 20000 like standard routers.

I also have a slew of diamond polishing pads, and the best source is www.hisglassworks.com. I was used to the 150.00 flexible diamond pads from 3M (which get dull rather quickly), until I started buying some of the $20.00 pads from there, and they hold up a long time.

You can actually sand glass and granite rather well with silicon carbide discs. They are usually black, and they last quite a while on glass, so I imagine that they will work on granite as well, for only a few feet of polishing til they get too dull.

The best trick I have learned for glass polishing (granite included) is the use of structured abrasives like 3M Trizact discs (1000 grit +/-). They are made from silicon carbide, and last almost as long as diamond, yet they CUT really fast for final smoothing before cerium polishing due to the grooves in the abrasive layer. Norton also makes their version - I use both.

[Jerry Olexa]

When we installed new granite countertops in our kitchen, the installer (boss) offered me several options for decorative edges..When asked, he told me he uses routers to rout the edges.(and he did).We did not discuss bits. HTH

[keith micinski]

The router isn't the issue, the bits are. Stone and countertops are not cut with carbide they are cut with diamond abrasives. I used to buy granite off of Craigslist until I figured out but the time I bought the granite and needed any work done to it other then straight cuts it was cheaper and easier to just go to the granite shop and just buy the stone from them and have them do it. Even if you got a diamond round over bit for a 7 inch grinder, at a 100 bucks a pop, you then also have to by a diamond abrasive disk kit to polish the edge because the bit won't leave the edge clean enough for a bathroom vanity without polishing.