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Techniques for CollectorsInland swap top
22nd Mar 2011 01:04 UTCPaul Hewitt
22nd Mar 2011 04:57 UTCRick Dalrymple Expert
I quite selling these machines in my store because I couldn't keep up on the warranty work. Of the first 6 machines I sold, I had to do major warranty work on all 6. It didn't get any better with the sales of more machines. My wife does glass art and she bought one of their band saws and it lasted less than one cut on glass.
If you want a dependable quality machine you will have to pay more to get a quality machine.
Good luck.
22nd Mar 2011 11:10 UTCMark Gottlieb
22nd Mar 2011 14:31 UTCPaul Hewitt
22nd Mar 2011 19:22 UTCPaul Hewitt
26th Mar 2011 03:29 UTCJamey Swisher
But the Inland is either hit or miss, and more then anything, they are a miss! Especially if using anything more then casually for an hour or so at a time.
26th Mar 2011 05:34 UTCDan R. Lynch
We once got a bad batch of them that had their plastic frames moulded improperly, and we had to modify them to work correctly. But out of the dozens my dad has sold, we've only had two come back, and Inland was very easy to work with for getting replacements.
Certainly not the best equipment, but it does the job. No idea why yours would have quit after only 10 hours though. I've been using my same saw for over 2 years, turning it on several times a week.
26th Mar 2011 07:07 UTCuncle soska
26th Mar 2011 12:52 UTCPaul Hewitt
just my 2 shiny new lincolns
26th Mar 2011 16:25 UTCRick Dalrymple Expert
It boils down to, if you want a reliable machine then purchase a quality machine. Inland are the toy version of lapidary equipment. They do not hold up to use like a quality machine. Same thing with Harbor Freight Tumblers. They are toys not tools. You get what you pay for.
28th Mar 2011 05:54 UTCJamey Swisher
-------------------------------------------------------
> Paul,
>
> It boils down to, if you want a reliable machine
> then purchase a quality machine. Inland are the
> toy version of lapidary equipment. They do not
> hold up to use like a quality machine. Same thing
> with Harbor Freight Tumblers. They are toys not
> tools. You get what you pay for.
I could not agree more. I wouldn't call them a toy though, maybe in comparison to a proper unit, but not just generally speaking.
Just simply search Google, you will find out quickly all the issues folks have with the Inland Swap Tops. For the occasional work they will be ok IF you get a good one. If not, not even for mild work. Like I mentioned above, you can get a B&I or Sears lap/saw combo (even has a faceting attachment if you can find it) for a small fraction of the Inland and it does the same things and does not wear out nor break.
Inland should honestly have kept to making Sintered Wheels and such, as their Sintered wheels are hard to beat!! Love ours!
FYI, flat laps are notoriously difficult to cut cabs on honestly, wheels are far much easier. The simplest way to get around this on a flat lap is to stick with flat top cabs instead of domed ones or do faceted type tops and flat bottoms. If it has to be domed stick to low domes and not high ones. It can be done however for any cab. I can cut a flawless cab on a flat lap, both the B&I unit we have and the lap on our Scintillator faceting machine, but when tried to on two different Inland units kept getting flat spots and other issues. I am not so sure the laps spin perfectly on them is the only thing I could come up with.
On a side note, those Harbor Freight tumblers actually work excellent with a few tweaks. First off ditch their belts, junk, get the Lortone belt for the 33B model and it works great. Now, they say 3LB for the single barrel and 6LB (3LB x 2) for the dual barrels, ignore this, no way can they do it and this is what causes the belts to snap. Keep those loads to about half to 2/3 at most and they will run more smoothly. The other option is to do what we did with one, and that was to replace the pulley, fan, and motor with Lortone parts, lol, fraction of the cost, and works just like the Lortone we have now. ;).
There are also some tweaks for the Inland to make it better, but I can not seem to fidn the bookmark I have for the website. :(
18th May 2011 01:33 UTCSTUART LEFFLER
Best of luck to you and I am sorry about your situation.
Stu
18th May 2011 01:59 UTCPaul Hewitt
30th Jul 2011 02:43 UTCInlanduser
30th Jul 2011 03:09 UTCInlanduser
Are you keeping the shaft and washer greased? Is the motor bottom touching any splashing or leaking water?
Are you contacting Inland about the motor? They sent me a new one and told me to keep it on a dedicated circuit after mine smoked. My old one overheated and kept shutting itself off, and finally blew. It probably got water in ti occasionally from overflow. Or pushing too hard on the saw.
I have modified mine to drain better, putting a piece of flexible hose over the shaft collar of the top to raise the lever of overflow to the motor. All you have to do is attach the grinders and laps higher on the shaft.
I have also attached Lego bricks on the legs of the unit to raise it higher. That way the motor has less chance of sitting on water with all the water splashing and running underneath the unit.
I also drilled some holes around the sides to maybe keep the motor cooler. It sure can get steamy inside.
The new motor that was sent me was more powerful and had a fuse. I had to get use to higher speeds. Perhaps some ouside dealers have older motors?
I recomment contacting Inland for every problem. There are some tweaks that could be made for lapidary work. I know that many use it for stained glass work. There are also hobbyists that use it for small woodwork projects with other parts that inland has. They cant fix it if they don' t know the problems!
I have used my unit for four years, and the money I have saved allowed me to buy a four inch trim saw. The Swap Top is not stable enough or fast enough for rocks.
30th Jul 2011 12:54 UTCPaul Hewitt
If you are comfortable with making modifications to a $400 machine and spending time on the phone with the manufacturer and waiting for parts to be delivered then by all means buy one of these. I will save my money and buy a quality product in the future.
30th Jul 2011 19:04 UTCMark Gottlieb
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thanks for the info but in my opinion it is a
> piece of junk.
So true! Really dissatisfied with mine.
2nd Aug 2011 22:28 UTCAnonymous User
I don't think I pushed it beyond its reasonable use. The motor never sat in water as I made sure the drain was open. I did find water in the motors after the first 2 broke. I told the service man at Inland and asked what I could do about that as the same thing happened twice. He had no suggestions. I have never had a motor last long enough to even think I needed to grease it.
I only do light wotrk with the machine so I did not want to put out the $$$$$$ for a heavy duty machine.
10th Aug 2011 14:12 UTCherb
Jerry at Inland is a nice enough guy, and the warranty replaces the motor, but who needs the aggravation, expense and time wasting of constantly replacing motors? I've spent almost $40 on postage just returning motors, not to mention the down time to my work. I'm not running an industrial shop here (30 hours use in 4 months) so it isn't getting over used., but the product just seems to be crap. I own over 50 power tools and machines, this is by far the worst, there isn't even a comparison.
As far as making modifications to make it work better....ok, fine, but you really shouldn't have to. At the very least, they should be telling you in the instruction booklet if things neeed to be done to it to make it work.
Unfortunately, the motor is a motor for 3 machines, so everything I bought ($400) will go in the trash when I finally get disgusted enough not to send in for another motor replacement. It's really a shame to spend $400 and get garbage like this. I am truly disgusted.
27th Aug 2011 22:20 UTCInlanduse
28th Aug 2011 00:56 UTCPaul Hewitt
19th Dec 2011 01:38 UTCJoAnn Whitcomb
JoAnn
28th Dec 2011 01:28 UTCKokomoEric
2nd Nov 2012 20:57 UTCFrankMurphy
2nd Nov 2012 21:01 UTCPaul Hewitt
3rd Nov 2012 00:06 UTCDan R. Lynch
I use mine to saw agates and use it every few weeks. I think I've had the same one for over 3 years now without issue. It isn't the best saw in the world (far from it), but it does the job. And I'm not saying that the motors don't burn out - I'm sure they do - but they're not for heavy use. Try letting it cool down and try it again later.
Good luck, everyone.
3rd Nov 2012 00:25 UTCPaul Hewitt
3rd Nov 2012 11:33 UTCBen Grguric Expert
23rd Feb 2013 04:07 UTCAli Kelly
28th Feb 2013 13:14 UTCtom henshue
28th Feb 2013 17:14 UTCRick Dalrymple Expert
Clearly your needs are different than that of a lapidary. We do lapidary for a living and a cheap Chinese tile saw will not do what a quality lapidary machine will do. However, you are right, those same quality lapidary machines do seem a little expensive. I feel the same way about "nicer" cars. They are just a car so why pay extra for a name, right? I guess the same can be said about a house too.
I do encourage you to build your own equipment. I have done it many times to fit our needs.
We sold the swap top units in our store for a short period of time--See my previous posts.
10th Mar 2013 15:13 UTCcbufalo
kesideech@att.net
26th Nov 2014 06:47 UTCKeith Bainbridge
I have read your thoughts on the inland swap lap and thank you very much. \I was going to purchase one for Christmas but you convience me not too. I live in Canada and would like your opinion on a cab machine for around $300.00. Do you know of any?
26th Nov 2014 10:38 UTCBen Grguric Expert
26th Nov 2014 22:15 UTCOlivier Langelier
with it and it already has lots of hours of near-abusive level work done without a hitch. I'm using
it mostly to clean rough before I send it to be cut oversea
The only negative side so far is the vibration. I admit that I use 80 grit Chinese disks but even
with the better disks of finer grit that came with the machine it vibrates and is noisy. Probably
due to the all plastic construction. I have not used the saw yet since I have another one setup
For a beginners this machine is quite all right. When I'll get better and have more budget I'll go
for a Covington Combo but until then I'm happy with what I have
26th Nov 2014 23:06 UTCBen Grguric Expert
That is good to hear. Perhaps Inland have finally re-engineered the motor or controller unit?
B.
29th Nov 2014 16:40 UTCOlivier Langelier
just take it to my city's electric motor shop and have a better motor put in the casing.
Thing is there's really not a lot of choice in that price range. I wanted a Covington 6'' combo
drill and grinder but this thing is expensive, close to 2000$ with taxes and shipping. Maybe
one day but for now I'm more than happy with the Inland.
I even made my first Moonstone cabochons today :-)
23rd Jan 2015 20:15 UTCTravis Hetsler
You do get what you pay for, but there are dependable machines to be had at reasonable prices.
Happy cutting!
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Copyright © mindat.org and the Hudson Institute of Mineralogy 1993-2024, except where stated. Most political location boundaries are © OpenStreetMap contributors. Mindat.org relies on the contributions of thousands of members and supporters. Founded in 2000 by Jolyon Ralph.
Privacy Policy - Terms & Conditions - Contact Us / DMCA issues - Report a bug/vulnerability Current server date and time: April 26, 2024 19:42:18