Which machine for headstones - please help.

[JAZZCNC]

All right , but what spindle you suggest for such a machine?

This is the problem it gets expensive very quickly for the correct spindle. Only a few manufacturers make spindles truely designed for stone,granite etc. The ones i know of are VEM which is an italian company and HSK who make spindles for just about every type of machine.
The correct spindle as a hollow Stainless steel shaft for water cooling and flushing, much like thru coolant on Mill's. They also often have extra bearings in the nose.
The prices are silly.!

http://vem.it/

My friend ended up buying a from a Chinese supplier. It was basically a modified BT40 milling spindle head with Stainless steel shaft and thru coolant. It was separate motor type not Electro spindle like 3Kw types.

if someone has stone machinery he will definitely not cut it on the CNC to squares and such. And if a shape cut is needed the Waterjet Cut is used. So again we are there that spindle is used for engraving.

Yes and no. Yes for straight cuts they use a cutting saw because it's quicker. But for Sink holes etc or shaped designs like Workstaions etc they do cut the shapes with parallel rourter cutters. Also how do you think they form the edge profiles after the Water jet cuts the shape.?
The Big boys do indeed use Water jets for speed but they are very very expensive to buy and run so you'll find most of the smaller worktop people actually do it manually or with a CNC machine. My friend did it all manually for a very long time untill we built him the CNC machine. We are planning the next version that will be much larger and have twin gantry's for cutting and milling.!! . . . The prices of Stone cutting CNC machines is eye watering.!!

I said change bearings, yeah for DIYer . Change spindle for a stone mason or send spindle for change of bearings. What, HSD spindle bearings are eternal ???? Nope, you send spindle to a company to refurbish costing probably 2-3k.

None. But 3 months isn't an acceptable life span which is how long the 3Kw lasted before the bearings gave up. Plus it wasn't doing a very hard job, it was only fluting draining boards. The water is what killed it mostly and the tooling MUST be run with water and lots of it.

And again, what about puch engraving. I doubt final client would care if V carved or punched, as far as there is a nice result. Otherwise laser engraving would not exist.

Boyan, I've no idea about these other methods and I'm not disagreeing with you just for the sake of it. I know these 3Kw spindles cannot handle the water required for the tooling to work correctly and last Engraving or cutting Marble and Granite, sandstone and softer stones yes possibly if Air/Extraction is used but in the main they are too fast and too weak for a proper Stone cutting machine which will cut harder material like the OP asked about.