Makita 4100KB 5" Dry Masonry Saw, with Dust Extraction

Good powerful grinder, used for cutting veneer stone and backer boards. When paired with my Festool vac system, it can eliminate much of the dust. Good solid purchase.

Dust collection with a vacuum attached is much better then with the dust bag. Use outdoors. The included diamond wheel blade is good and long lasting for bluestone cutting.

I had a crazy idea - cut my existing 3 yr old kitchen island in half indoors to open up space. I needed something that (1) could cut quartz quickly (2) had good dust management (this is inside out kitchen).This thing (with the 'Hard' diamond blade) cut through 2cm quartz like butter with absolutely no visible chipping. I squirted a tiny amount of water every now and them at the blade where it was sparking to keep it cool. With a shop-vac attached to the dust port it kept dust down to a bare minimum. In total i made 40 linear ft of cuts in 2cm thick quartz before the blade started to feel just a little harder to push - there's still plenty of life left in the blade. The shop-vac collected about 3- 4 lbs of quartz dust. About 2 oz of water was used as a coolant overall.I never tried the 'universal' blade that came with it, instead i used the Makita 5" Diamond Hard blade.A few other points:1. Saw is light enough to freehand cut vertical surfaces, plunge cuts easy2. Vibration is non-existent3. Noise is very manageable (with ear protection)4. Blade change is easy5. Depth adjustment is easy6. Cut is readily visible as sparks emanate from the cutting edge7. Kickbacks were non-existent (except when i did something foolish)I'm done with it so it's getting cleaned and listed on e bay .

Used it to cut bricks, very sharp and durable.

I am a professional craftsman, and have been working in my field for 28 years.I bought this saw to cut large ceramic tile, and to make field cuts on tile and masonry in remodeling.While the saw performs well, it is not dustless by any stretch because the dust guard does not go all the way down to the workpiece. A vacuum connection will help, but this is not a dustless design. Indoor work will require you to be creative if you do not want dust on everything.The main problem I had when setting up this saw was that the directions were mostly about how not to hurt yourself, but incomplete with regard to how to actually set it up with a blade. I used a Makita brand blade to simplify the system ( so I thought). The instructions do not tell you that there are two spacer knockouts in the center of the 5" blades. For this saw, you need to knock out only the smaller of the two. There is a thin brass-colored ring that needs to stay in. Then the blade will tighten properly and not create problems.One other thing to note: there are two tools supplied to loosen or tighten the blade in place. One is a flat wrench, the other is an Allen wrench. It can be tough to keep the flat wrench from slipping as you tighten. I would recommend taking off the dust shroud with a Phillips screwdriver (screwhead near the top) to reveal a little metal cradle of sorts underneath that can help hold the flat wrench more securely. You place the head of the wrench as normal on the flange, then rest the handle of the wrench in the metal cradle for stability. I promise it helps.This is a good saw. It's just more complicated than most. All the features are there, but it's difficult to learn about them from the provided instructions.

Cut through 1” plaster and mesh wall like butter. I connected a small shop vac to it with gorilla tape and it removed 90% of the dust. A larger vac would have been better. A fan in the window removed the rest. I cut 2 x 4 sections off of a 14 x 8 wall and only took about 10 minutes for the cutting. Very glad I purchased this saw.

Good

I had to cut a lot of hand plastered walls and this worked great when I hooked it up to a vacuum. This was inside, and cutting this stuff quickly filled the room with dust. Hardly any just when used with a vacuum. I also find the size comfortable for over head use.