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[Rudy2dogs]

Has anyone ever heard of Ideal Lapidary slab saws? Are they any good?

[Downwindtracker2]

During rockhounding's heyday, lapidary equipment was made by many small machine shops as well as the bigger manufacturers. As an example, my wife has a Gem-Ray arbor made by Ray's Machine Shop in New Westminster BC. Not me . That industrial area is nothing but condos, now. So you may not find out much about Ideal Lapidary.

You can look up slab saws, there some good videos but here is good one https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIs4z9w7IQLommkAR3BjO_g .

I have a half done project 24" so I did some research. Our's was a government project, likely built in a maintenance  shop , I'm thinking. Drop saws like the Lortone 14"and New Highland Park 14" are easy, except for the oil pump. However with the other style, the rock is passed by the blade on a carriage like in a old saw mill.Here you have three main parts, you have:

arbor
vise, carriage, and rails
feedworks None  except cable and weight, are simple, easy fixes, so I would check them out closely. If that works, rest are easy fixes.

[irockhound]

Doing some looking I found references to Ideal Lapidary Mojave Industries.  It looks like they used to be based in AZ and are long out of business.

[Kaljaia]

If it's got a good motor and a way to lubricate the blade it's at least a start. What's the configuration? Drop or feed?