6" Grinder Polishing Machine

I have been cabbing for almost 15 years. I have a Loritone from the 70's that takes SiC belts on 2 8" Expando drums It is a good machine, but it is big and belt driven and has to be stopped every 2 grit sizes to change belts. My wife told me to get a new one. After a ton of research I went with the CabKing. It is a very well built and well thought out system The 2 hard wheels make very fast work of roughing out your cabs. Both are excellent quality. The 4 remaining resin bond soft wheels are great for working up to final polish. Not as fast or aggressive as the hard wheel, they are still 10 times fast than SiC belts. Moving on to the 14K paste on the end pad was great. It does take a bit to get a good charge worked into the pad but I used less than 1/4 of a gram (the syringe was filled to 2 1/4 grams). Occasional refreshing should done probably every 10 stones or so. The system also come with a 360 grit flat lap for working flat backs. This is honestly almost as much fun as the grinding wheels. It works very well and I will be adding a lot more grits to work some flats up to polish. The left side of the unit accepts standard 1/2 arbor laps (again 6") so a good lap backer and some diamond disks can be used to work like a flat lap on the cheap (laps are around $25 and disks at around $12)Everything on the machine is easy to use. The water trays come off easy, the side panels are removable, the splash guards can be moved around as can the hand rests. The water spray system is brilliant. A very well made pond pump is attached (via a brass reducer valve) to the standard vinyl tubing (I think it is aquarium air tubing). This tees into the 2 hoods. Each wheel as a triple jet spray nozzle (adjustable) and there are spray nozzles for each arbor end for the laps. All are adjustable and can be turned on and off separate. No worries about cross contamination as the wheels are provided with fresh water at all times. You will need a couple 5 gallon buckets. One for the fresh water and the pump, and one for the dirty waste water. The motor has a built in GFI and a waterproof on off switch. The motor is mounted to a sturdy waterproof baseboard with nice rubber feet. The trays set in some grommets build into the baseboard. They are a little difficult to get lined up perfectly but you get used to it pretty quick. The trays have drain connectors at the back. The hoses for these drains are the only real let down in the system. It is very thin walked flex tubing (like dishwasher drain tubing). It is very hard to push into the drains as it collapses too easy. I had mine pop off a couple times until I figured out that you need to put the rubber grommet into the tubing first, then work that into the pan outlet. It was not an easy task and I will be replacing those lines very soon. The system comes with a couple arbor wrenches, and an allen key for the locking collar. You will need a 2mm Allen wrench to adjust the water control knobs it you want all the white lines to line up perfectly (I did). The last wonderful nugget is the lamp. This thing is amazing. It flexes into just about any position, and has enough of a reach to shine on the front of the wheels, or all the way to the side laps. It is bright and has a warm LED bulb. I would have preferred a harsh white lamp, but I'm pleased with the amount of light out of this lamp. They even include a nice long vinyl apron and a really decent pair of safety goggles (that will fit over eyeglasses). Instructions are well written (in real English) and a nice book is included in how to use diamond to cut stones. Best of all the unit is assembled in the USA with foreign and domestic parts. Reentel has a lot of lapidary equipment under their name (Inland, Hi-Tech, CabKing, TumbleBee) and their parts are pretty reasonable in price. They have a good website and ship pretty fast. They know how to package products so they arrive safe and sound. If you have always dreamed of polish rocks into cabs- then this is a great machine that should last a lifetime. Update: My GFI plug went on the fritz. The solenoid was acting up and tripping the micro switch. I contacted them (Reentel) on Saturday and they shipped a replacement plug out Monday! 3 screws and I was up and running again. Machine has been such a joy to run and setup/cleanup is quick and easy. Takes me 15 minutes to go from a preformed to a polished cab. Just way too much fun!

Overall, I found this machine to be well-made and well-engineered, plenty powerful enough, although with a few negative points that this unit could really use improvement on. The unit is well-balanced and quiet to a point. By that I mean the motor and wheels are whisper quiet, but the housing, which is mostly plastic, will vibrate more or less depending on a few factors. One of them is if you add a lap disc at the end. This seems to add a tiny bit of vibration to the motor and shaft which in turn gets the housing going a bit. Another thing that gets the housing vibrating a bit is the hose. I found the hoses for draining tend to bend upward before going over the edge of a table because of thier bend from being stored rolled up. This causes the water to not drain properly and I tried several ways of routing the hoses. In order for the drain pans to drain I ended up using some ankle weights to weigh down the hoses (as seen in picture) and keep that from bowing up. But the drain pans are part of the housings and this causes them to vibrate even more but it stops once you rest your hands on the hand rests. I will fix this in the next few days(see below). And finally, the little metal side covers. At first I thought that they mounted by being wedged in the space that they went. This put a slight bow in them and pushed up on the housing which caused vibrations. So I decided to trim the bottoms of those panels by 1/4 inch as seen in picture and then mount them with velcro for easy removal. Thats when I discovered that the housing had magnets for the cover (like I said well engineered) and they just snapped right in place. I dont know why the panels where too long, maybe cut and made by another company maybe the guy making them just messed up that day. But they were too long without a doubt. It seems that most peoples complaints are noise and really the only noise comes from these three causes. Now there isnt anything you can do about the flat disc at the end throwing things slightly out of balance. But the hoses giving you a choice of either not draining well or added vibration if you fix the draining problem could just be fixed by throwing in a pair of elbows into the package. Which I will be doing in the next day or two. Then the customer could just cut and measure the hose for the table they are using and cut, straighten that section of hose out with heat from a hair dryer, and then use the elbows to make it all look nice and neat and drain properly. If the side panels were the right length, it would help, assuming this is common, judging by other reviews. A few other ideas for improvement would be to add lead weight into the two housings to just help with vibration in general and if the two front feet were replaced with adjustable feet like on a refrigerator, that would be very handy for many customers, I am sure. The unit is a little "wet" when working; if the drain pans extended out another 6 inches to the front, that would catch most of the water spray that seems to be happening. And that's about it, pretty minor stuff. All the major components are top-notch from the water delivery(minus the actual drip or spray onto the wheels, it's very aggressive) to the motor and shafts. The wheels that come with it are great, can't testify yet to how durable they are but the unit works fantastically. The negatives just are not enough to reduce this from being a 5 star. Updated with pic showing the elbows installed. Would recommend this if you go thru the table or over the edge, either way the elbows are a must. Typical irrigation 5/8 elbow.

So first off I would never spend this much money on a machine I would just use the other machines I have and “rough” it! BUT my husband got me this for Christmas and it has been a true blessing! I can create a piece in literally a tenth of the time and it comes out 100% better with a lot less effort !! I did modify the hand rest so I had more control and less wrist strain as I have small hands. I also added rubber mats in the water trays so if I dropped a stone while working on it it wasn’t hitting metal but a soft rubber surface instead:) I was pleasantly surprised regarding the water usage, I filled a 5 gallon bucket half way and have completed 30 stones and the bucket is still a quarter full meaning I’m not having to constantly refill or empty the new and used water buckets which can be a pain I have experienced with my other equipment. The grit wheels haven’t shown much wear after 30 stones so I’m hoping they will be as advertised and last quite a long time! I will update this review in a month and let you know if I have had to replace or if they are still going strong! I don’t wright many reviews but when something has made me this happy I feel I must share so others can share in the joy by giving this product a try!! The ease of going from one grit wheel to the next without stopping and changing it from start to finish is amazing! I was doing 5-8 stones at a time when having to change the grit discs after each step thus never finishing anything in one sitting but now I can do one stone from shaping to polishing in about 10min. A true time saver ! I was a little disappointed there was not a variable speed feature however I discovered the wheels turn at a perfect speed regardless of what step or type of project I’m working on. Final remark yes it’s expensive and yes it’s worth every penny😁

Amazing machine! Truly excellent design and engineering! Everything works perfect and so far it kicks the #$%! out of the Genie! Much better machine for the money as well. Highly recommend to any gem enthusiast or professional! The water distribution is a clean and efficient design with zero cross contamination, unlike the genies water squirters that shoot up dirty gritty water into your 100 dollar nova wheels! Truly impressive machine. Almost wish i had bought the 8 inch but this one is perfect regardless. Beyond excellent customer service!!! I got two left side shields at first and was bummed i couldn't use it right away. They sent out new shield sides for left and right immediately! I only had to wait a day and they told me to keep the extra parts!!! I've been cutting for over two years on it and the wheels are still in great shape! Don't waste your money on Diamond Pacific tools. They are insanely dated and way overpriced. They were products meant to keep the common gem lover out of the cutting business. The genie might only be 2200 to 3k today(+700 over the cabking) but they were that price in the 70s and 80s!!!! It's no wonder lapidarys are a dying breed... Only people with degrees could afford them. NO WAY IN HELL MY PARENTS MADE ENOUGH BACK THEN TO BUY THAT MACHINE! We were renting vcrs for godsake... and a wet grinder costs as much as a new car did??!! Not ok...DPTC uses answering machines on weekends!!! What does that even mean??? RIP DPTC 2023!!! Cab King keeps the genie in a bottle, the Pixie in a cage and the Titan in a prison cell!! Thank you for ushering in a new era of lapidary artiists!!!!

This Kabking machine has it all. Here are some of the things I really like, and my list just keeps growing every time I turn it on! 1. It takes up a good piece of real-estate in my shop, but with all it does, it actually saved me space. 2. It came largely assembled. The instructions on the procurers to put it into full operations were easy to follow, and the videos on Kabking’s web page on operating and maintaining the machine were wonderful. The videos on Kabbing were also very helpful for a intermediate beginner. 3. While, I understood it has the flat lap polisher, which is very nice because it screwed on from the back plate, rather than bolted on through a center hole, allows me to work much larger rocks. 4. What I did not realize was that on the left side, you could use the bolt on flat Lap disks, so my previous investments are still fully usable. 5. The fresh water drip and old water drain off is fantastic. First of all, it enables me to use both my hands and second it all but eliminated the dust and the need for a good dust mask. The adjustable splash plate mostly keeps the water going into the drip pans that drain out to a wast water bucket making clean up pretty easy. The apron that comes as part of the package takes care of most of the water that does escape. 6. The powerful motor is surprisingly quiet. 7. The submersible water pump is powered independently from the Kabking making everything very safe. I put the water pump on a separate power strip to make it easy to turn on and off. 8. This thing, just plane looks good and works great. It has the muscle to handle the hardest of rocks, the tools to gently work the softest of stones, and the Kabking Web site is terrific. The Rock Club I joined recently has one of these machines, and it is always checked out to someone... That says a lot!

I am new to the Lapidary, hobby and order this machine in order to make my cabochons. I ordered the machine and it arrived promptly, but when we opened it up, we found that the motor housing had been broken probably while shipping. It appeared it had been dropped. I contacted the customer service, who immediately Sent out a brand new motor housing for me to swap out on the machine. It arrived promptly as well. It was in great condition, and it worked just as promised. I’m very happy with their great customer service and this great machine which operates so very well and reliably. The company also provided all the instructions necessary in order to perform the housing swap. Customer service also did a follow up to ensure that I had no further problems and was able to make the swap without difficulty.

As advertised great machine easy to set up east to run. I wish I had room for the 8" version as I mostly work on larger sized stones.

Great machine, really happy with it, has really sped up cab cutting using it instead of my older, smaller cabber. I have only one issue with it, each time you move to the next wheel you have to shut off one water valve and turn on the next, and adjust it for output so you don't get soaked. I changed that. I bought a few feet of the same plastic water tubing, a drip irrigation tiny plastic valve, and a tiny sprayer, mounted the sprayer to a small wood block, and hooked the water input directly to this. Now I adjust the valve one time, and just move the block under each wheel as I progress to keep the wheel wet. This uses far less water and none is splattering out all over me and the floor, and it's dramatically faster. Really saves time and mess.

I like the ease of how you can set up and use