[Rockhounds] A Big Rock Saw

[Alan Goldstein]

Geologically speaking, the movie "Breaking Away" is set in Bloomington 
Indiana which is in an area known limestone quarries used for building 
stone. The layers within the Middle Mississippian Salem Limestone are 
composed of uncountable numbers of micro-fossils dominated by foraminifera, 
echinoderm plates, brachiopods, snails, bryozoan fragments and more. Its 
uniformity allows it to be worked in any direction. Columns, spheres, 
eagles, you name it... can be sculpted by the stone cutters. The mills have 
some really BIG lathes! It has been used for more than 150 years.

Alan


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "J Bryan Kramer" <codeburner at gmail.com>
To: "Rockhounds at drizzle.com: A mailing list for rock and gem collectors" 
<rockhounds at lists.drizzle.com>
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2007 10:16 AM
Subject: Re: [Rockhounds] A Big Rock Saw


> OK that makes sense, the kerf looked so wide I couldn't see why a quarry
> would or could use one. The movie Breaking Away has some scenes with the
> cable saws in it IIRC, tho it's been quite awhile since I watched it. It's
> set around marble quarries.
>
> Of course in Florida they can do cable ditching with the Ditch Witch type
> machines since we don't reall y have any hard rock in state.
>
> BK
>
> On 9/16/07, Kreigh Tomaszewski <Kreigh at tomaszewski.net> wrote:
>>
>> Bryan,
>>
>> They are used for trenching thru rock to lay utility cables. Typical
>> depth of cut is one yard; I think it is a three inch kerf. I understand
>> there are even bigger/wider models for cutting water pipe trenches.
>>
>> I have heard that most quarries use cable saws for slabbing the huge
>> blocks they remove from careful blasting.
>>
>> Kreigh