A professional who sets up and operates one or more gangsaws or reciprocating saws to cut rough blocks of stone into specified dimensions for further processing. Responsibilities include:

• Builds bed of timbers on flat car.
• Aligns and levels stone on bed, using crowbar, sledgehammer, wedges, blocks, and spirit level.
• Marks dimensions on stone, using straightedge, rule, and crayon.
• Turns crank or pushes button to activate winch that moves car onto track under saw frame.
• Moves saw blades along frame, aligning blades with marks on stone; positions blocks (width gauges) between blades; levels blades; and inserts wedges into frame to secure blades to frame.
• Turns lever to lower saw blades on stone.
• Starts saws and pump that circulates water and abrasive under reciprocating blades to cut stone.
• Observes sawing to detect exhausted abrasive supply.
• Dumps abrasive into abrasive pit to maintain cutting speed.
• Turns crank to increase or decrease speed of saws according to hardness of stone and uniformity of abrasive flow.
• Washes stone, using water hose, and verifies width or thickness of cut stone, using rule.
• Replaces worn saw blades.
• Signals overhead crane operator to remove cut slabs from car or saw bed.
• May operate diamond gangsaw equipped with up to thirty vertically mounted diamond-edged saw blades.