Diamond Blades for Clinker

Clinker calls for a blade with a soft segment bond and a continuous or turbo rim. Fired at roughly 1100–1300°C, the material absorbs under 6% water and reaches 40–80 MPa in compression, which makes it hard yet barely abrasive — it exposes no fresh diamond grit on its own, so the eroding soft matrix does that work. A continuous rim suits facing elements and tiles, a narrow-slot rim handles pavers and rough cutting. Common sizes are 230 mm for angle grinders and 350–400 mm with a 25.4 mm bore for table saws.

The difference sits in bond hardness, not in the diamond itself. Clinker is hard and barely abrasive, so it needs a soft matrix. Sand-lime and hollow ceramic block are soft but heavily abrasive — sand-lime typically reaches 15–25 MPa against the 40–80 MPa of clinker — and consume the segment so fast that a hard bond is the right answer. A sand-lime blade put into clinker glazes over within the first dozen or so metres and stops biting; a clinker blade run in sand-lime loses its rim several times faster than rated.

A clean edge comes from a continuous or turbo rim, water cooling and a steady, unhurried feed from the face side. The sintered face is brittle where the blade exits, so slow down over the final 10–15 mm or come in from the opposite side. Dark streaks mean overheating: cutting dry, keep a rhythm of 20–30 seconds in the cut and a few seconds running free to cool the core. Support the unit on both sides of the kerf: any play pinches the blade and snaps the corner off.

Slurry from clinker stains heavily, because it carries fine particles of fired clay loaded with iron oxides. Reddish-brown runs soak into fresh mortar and light materials; once set, only an acidic cleaner lifts them. Trim away from the finished face and rinse splashed surfaces within 5–10 minutes, before the slurry dries. Dry cutting swaps that problem for another: brick dust carrying respirable crystalline silica, capped at 0.1 mg/m³ in Poland, so work with dust extraction and a half mask fitted with a filter of at least P2 class, which retains around 94% of the aerosol.