Cutting lava rock

[aramis720]

Can anyone tell me the best way to cut lava rock? I've been researching masonry saws but it seems that they're all focused on very thin tiles or other stone, rather than the much deeper lava rock type of cutting.

[Carey]

There are some fairly large concrete saws that are used to cut major portions of concrete (fairly costly & you may go through a lot of blades, depending on the lava you are cutting...cutting a lot of blue rock will take time & blades!)

[VancouverIslander]

Carey is correct. Cut the edges with a concrete saw and bust it up with a jackhammer. Unless you want to do a large area, in which case get big equipment (excavator, Cat, etc)

[Jay Bondesen]

I never heard a name but in 2006 a friend who was a builder mentioned a business in Waimea where he picked up slabs of cut lava to use for a floor in an outside shower. It was probably not blue rock. It's not clear if you are wanting to cut and use lava for something decorative or something else.

Jay

[Haaheo okole puka]

I have three diamond blade saws and all work fine with lava. I have a gas powered Makita Concrete saw 14" and use it often to bread slice the surface of lava and snap it over with sledge hammer creating oblong 2"-4" wide (depending on slice spacing's) by an average 5" in depth. They come out as small irregular slabs. I can do this repeatedly until a lava outcropping is at the desired grade. I also have a Core Cut CC500M 14" sliding block saw (blades are interchangeable with Makita) and sometimes use the cut breakaway lava to cut lava bricks which I can later slice into tile. My other saw is a 10" sliding tile saw made by Ridgid and I can cut the tiles into a given shape with nice clean edges. All the blades last a long time if only used with Lava. You will find the less porous blue rock to take greater time to cut and the more porous the rock the less effort to cut. There are many types of blades available for each of these saws depending on the speed or precision you're looking to achieve. Lava is perhaps the easiest stone to cut with these blades that are also designed for rebar cutting in embedded concrete etc.
I have several spare blades of differing types but have yet to replace any of my original blades and I have cut a lot of stone with them in the past 4 years.

[Haaheo okole puka]

Home depot used to sell the gas Makita 14" concrete saw for around $750. They also make wheeled cutting carts for them or you can fashion some sort of jig if your looking for precise cutting paths.
Look on craigslist for used saws, they used to be widely available on island.
If you're wanting to slice up loose rocks I would recommend something similar to my Core Cut 14" block saw and a simple sliding tile saw for detailing.

[aramis720]

Great, thanks everyone. Very helpful.

[EightFingers]

There's also a business in Kona that sells lava rock slabs. They're next to Aloha Hardwoods.

[aramis720]

Thanks EightFingers, great info.

[aramis720]

Do you know the name? I couldn't find it in a Google search.