A company in Kent is offering to re-dress metal-bonded diamond tools. They say an ordinary polishing wheel costing about £150 can be re-dressed four times at £20 a time rather than having to replace the wheel each time - thus saving £500.

The service is being offered by Cranden Diamond Products Ltd, who have supplied electroplated diamond tools to the stone industry in Britain for the past 20 years.

They say they have long been surprised at how few masons and fitters bother to get more life out of the expensive metal bonded and resin coated diamond tooling they use every day.

So Cranden have decided to offer a nationwide re-dressing service. "Everyone knows you can re-plate electro-plated diamond tools," says Stuart Cleary of Cranden. "The waste is in the metal-bonded and resin tools that, mainly, come in from abroad. We already have a thriving business re-dressing metal bonded saws that cease to perform half way through their life because they are out of shape and glazed.

"Resin diamond polishing wheels for grinding and polishing forms can also be re-dressed to run as new in no time and at a price that reflects the small modification we have to make."We only need the tools for a day, so you can expect them to be returned the same week, ready to use as new."

Stuart explains that metal-bonded diamond tools stop working efficiently because the diamonds wear flat and the metal bond clogs up with waste material that sets hard. What Cranden do is grind through the bond to the next layer of diamonds. This can work as well for diamond tools as it does for saw blade segments, they say.

For more information call Cranden Diamon Products on Tel: 01590 241252.

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