The Mini is not a reduced version of the Standard. It runs the same software, cuts with the same 0.22 mm wire, and holds the same slice tolerance. What changes is the envelope: 65 cm tall, 58 wide, 50 kg — a machine that goes on a laboratory bench rather than on the floor.
What you trade is capacity and one safeguard. 150 mm instead of 200. A 30 metre spool instead of 80. No automatic water level monitoring — you check it yourself. The stone stays still in a stainless steel tank while the cutting head moves over it, rather than rising into the wire on a Z stage. Nothing about the quality of the cut is different.
At a Glance
- What it is: a bench-top precision diamond wire saw with a reciprocating spool wire. Same software, wire and slice tolerance as the Gem Slicer Standard, in less space.
- Kerf: 0.22 mm with the supplied wire, against 1.5–3 mm for a conventional blade.
- Thinnest slice: 0.25–0.3 mm, measured on this model in brittle stone meteorite; ±0.05 mm at 2 mm.
- Capacity: 150 × 150 × 150 mm; the machine itself is 65 × 58 × 60 cm and 50 kg.
- Unattended cutting: automatic slicing series, camera and remote access; the water level is checked by the operator.
- Price and delivery: €10,000 ex VAT, FCA Sofia; up to two months from the 50% deposit, including a 168-hour test run.
- Maker: Next Equipment, Bulgaria. 40+ machines in 15 countries, 2-year warranty, lifetime remote support.
Who It Is For
Metallography and petrography laboratories preparing sections for analysis. Alloy quality control, where the same cut has to come out the same way every time. University departments and research groups. Jewellers and gem cutters working rough under 150 mm.
At 65 cm tall and 50 kg it sits on a bench. That is the practical difference for a laboratory: it goes on the worktop next to the polisher and the microscope, instead of taking a piece of floor you would have to find first.
If your material regularly exceeds 150 mm, or you run long unattended queues, the Gem Slicer Standard is the right machine — same work, but a floor-standing one.
What It Cuts
A 0.22 mm kerf against the 1.5 to 3 mm a conventional blade removes. Slices down to 0.25–0.3 mm, proven repeatedly in brittle stone meteorite. At 55 dB you can hold a conversation standing next to it, and the water runs in a closed loop — no supply line, no drain, which is usually what decides whether a saw can live in a room that was not built for machinery.
€10,000, ex VAT. FCA Sofia. Payment by bank transfer — 50% deposit, the balance before dispatch. Shipping and insurance are quoted separately and added to your proforma.
The Numbers
| Cutting capacity (X / length) | 150 mm |
| Cutting capacity (Z / height) | 150 mm |
| Cutting width | 150 mm |
| Specimen mounting | fixed in a stainless steel tank; the cutting head moves, not the stone |
| Specimen limit | the 150 mm envelope, not weight — the tank carries more than any stone that fits in it |
| X-axis positioning resolution | 0.02 mm (ball screw) |
| Typical slice tolerance | ±0.05 mm at 2 mm slice thickness |
| Minimum slice thickness | 0.25–0.3 mm, verified in brittle stone meteorite |
| Kerf | 0.22 mm with the supplied open-loop wire; 0.6 mm with closed-loop wire |
| Wire linear speed | 40 to 100 m/min |
| Cutting feed (Z) | 1 to 200 mm/h |
| Wire spool capacity | 30 m; any working length from about 5 m upward, set by the reversing sensors |
| Wire thickness compatibility | 0.1 mm to 0.8 mm |
| Wire types | Open loop (spool) or closed loop, 1 m – built for both since the first model |
| Closed-loop changeover | About five minutes with the two ER32 spanners supplied; adapter in preparation |
| Power | 110–240 V auto-switch (global compatibility) |
| Power consumption | up to 250 W |
| Noise | 55 dB |
| Cooling and water | closed loop, no plumbing required |
| Water level monitoring | manual check; no level sensors |
| Positioning laser | projects the cutting plane onto the specimen before the cut |
| Hour meter | counts Z-axis running time, shown on screen |
| Control interface | 7-inch touch panel |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi, LAN, integrated camera, AnyDesk |
| Installation | bench-top |
| Machine dimensions | 65 cm H × 58 cm W × 60 cm D |
| Machine weight | 50 kg |
| Current lead time | Up to two months from the 50% deposit to dispatch, including the 168-hour test run |
Measured on Camera
Everything above is a specification. Below is the same machine, measured. Both videos were shot on a Gem Slicer Mini cutting weathered stone meteorite — a brittle material, and the hardest case there is for thin slices.
Three slices at a nominal 2.00 mm, measured with a micrometer: 1.951 mm, 1.970 mm, 1.979 mm. A spread of 0.028 mm across the three, all inside the ±0.05 mm stated above. They are not consecutive slices — other thicknesses were cut from the same specimen in between.
All three read slightly under nominal, and that is worth understanding before you buy any wire saw. The machine advances the X axis by slice thickness plus wire thickness, and wire thickness is a parameter you enter. Enter 0.22 mm — the wire itself — and slices come out a few hundredths thin, because the real kerf is a little wider than the bare wire. Measure one slice, enter the real figure, and nominal becomes delivered. That offset is systematic, so it calibrates out. The spread does not — and the spread is what tells you what the machine will hold.
How thin it will go in the same material: 0.282 mm, 0.191 mm, 0.207 mm. We publish 0.25–0.3 mm as the minimum rather than 0.19, because below about a quarter of a millimetre not every slice survives — the remaining wall gives way under the wire before the pass finishes. The figure on this page is the one you can plan around, not the best one we have hit.
What Arrives on Your Loading Dock
Fully assembled and calibrated, on a half-euro pallet inside a heavy-wall carton — the same packaging system as the Standard, one metre shorter.
| Package dimensions | 82 × 64 × 90 cm (pallet included) |
| Gross weight | 65 kg |
| Chargeable weight, air freight | approx. 95 kg volumetric |
In the Box, and Ready to Cut
Take it out of the crate, fill the water container, cut. Thirty metres of 0.22 mm wire arrive already wound on the machine reel, and nothing needs assembling.
- 30 m of 0.22 mm diamond wire, loaded on the reel and ready to cut
- 1,000 m supply spool of 0.22 mm diamond wire — roughly two months of normal cutting. How long one loading lasts depends on the material, the size of the specimen and the cutting parameters, so we quote ranges rather than figures.
- 30 polyamide guide rollers — five fitted, twenty-five spare
- Spool adapter for winding wire from the supply spool onto the machine reel
- 2 × ER32 collet sector spanners, 13 mm box spanner for bearing replacement, guide roller cap wrench, 10 and 18 mm open-end spanners, hex key set, screwdriver
- Diamond wire cutters, spare fasteners, foam PVC adapters for mounting stones, leather gloves
- Operating manual, EC declaration of conformity and warranty card, in the crate with the machine
Not included: shipping and insurance, and the closed-loop wire adapter.
The Software Is Identical, With One Exception
This is worth being explicit about, because it is where compact machines usually cut corners. The Mini runs the same control software as the Standard, on a 7-inch panel instead of an 8-inch one: anti-tummy, Z-retract, kerf compensation, automatic cutting, the hour meter, the built-in camera and remote access over Wi-Fi or LAN. Compact saws normally drop the camera and the remote monitoring first. This one keeps them.
What the Mini does not have is the Standard’s two-stage water level monitoring. Its water runs in a closed loop and you check the level yourself before a long cut, rather than the machine warning you and stopping on its own. If you routinely run unattended overnight queues, that difference is the reason to take the Standard.
What the software actually does, function by function →
A Broken Wire Is Not a Lost Loading
The reel reverses between two sensors that slide along a rail, each with an indicator lamp, and their position sets the working length — anything from a few metres up to a full spool. A full loading is around 30 m, but the machine does not insist on one.
This matters on friable material. If the wire parts because the specimen pinched it in the kerf rather than because the wire is worn out, you are not throwing the loading away: remove the short piece, slide the sensors to the length that remains, and carry on cutting with the same wire. Five metres of wire in good condition is a working setup.
Maintenance and Service
Fifteen standard 6001 RS bearings, replaced as a set at about 3,000 operating hours — the machine counts its own hours and shows them on screen, so the interval is real running time and not a date in a diary. Guide rollers €1 each. An annual service measured in an hour rather than a day, at €90–120 a year in normal use (parts and costs, itemised).
Parts ship the same day and you fit them yourself — the saw is designed never to come back to Bulgaria. Next day inside EU zone 1 by DHL, three days to Madagascar, three days to the USA. Non-load-bearing parts are 3D printed and we send you the file and print settings so you can make them yourself.
Two-year warranty, all customers, worldwide. Software support and cutting advice for the life of the machine, included.
Not Sure How Your Material Will Cut? Send Us a Sample.
A specification describes the machine. It does not describe your rock. Send us a piece of the material you intend to cut. We slice it on the machine you are considering and send the slices back, together with a video of the cut — so you see the feed rate, the surface it leaves and how the saw behaves on your material rather than on ours.
Sample size: up to 5 × 5 cm. That is enough to show the average cutting rate and the quality of the cut face. On hard material a single cut through a larger piece can take a full day and tells you nothing that 5 cm would not.
Within the EU. Shipping in both directions is at the sender’s cost. We recommend insuring the parcel; the transport risk stays with the sender. Please do not ship anything before we have agreed on it.
Outside the EU: talk to us first. We are glad to do this within reason, but a sample leaving and re-entering the EU is a customs matter rather than a postal one, and whether it is workable depends on your country and your material. What comes up in practice:
- Customs clearance in both directions, with the paperwork and the delay that goes with it
- Import duty and VAT charged on the return shipment
- Materials under a special regime — meteorites, which several countries restrict or prohibit for export; protected minerals and fossils; anything covered by CITES, such as coral or ivory
- Radioactive minerals, asbestos-bearing minerals and other hazardous samples, which we do not accept from anywhere
- Gemstones and other high-value pieces, which we do not accept — customs treats them as valuables, and the risk of loss is not one either of us should carry for a test cut
Write to us with the material, the country and what you need to find out. We will tell you honestly whether it can be done.
If shipping is not practical. Describe your material and we will cut the closest equivalent from our own stock and send you the video. It is not your own stone, but it answers the same question.
Mini or Standard?
| Gem Slicer Mini | Gem Slicer Standard | |
|---|---|---|
| Cutting length | 150 mm | 200 mm |
| Cutting height | 150 mm | 220 mm |
| Cutting width | 150 mm | 80–250 mm adjustable |
| Wire spool | 30 m | 80 m |
| Installation | bench-top | floor-standing |
| Control panel | 7-inch | 8-inch |
| Water level monitoring | manual check | two sensors: warning, then automatic stop |
| Cutting motion | head moves, stone fixed in the tank | stone rises into the wire on the Z stage |
| Specimen weight limit | the envelope decides | 50 kg on the Z axis |
| Hour meter, camera, remote access, laser | yes | yes |
| Price | €10,000 | €15,000 |
Before It Ships: 168 Hours
Every machine runs for a full week before it leaves us. The test simulates real cutting, and the last runs are done dry, so that your machine does not arrive already dirty from our bench.
Then it is stripped down and cleaned completely, and gone over one part at a time: every sensor, every motor, the linear guides, the play on each axis.
Up to two months from your deposit, and one of those weeks is your own machine already working.