The Som jamb peg from KMT Jaipur

As mentioned in the "Where to buy" page the most affordable machines would be Som jamb peg, the Som head being almost identical to my machines. I have never used the traditional French jamb peg so will stay with what I know about, which is the Israeli style modern jamb peg. I now have a Som desktop machine, so no more guesswork as to how good the Som is.

The most important aspect of these machines are that the head numbers are easy to read, and the machine can easily be setup to cut perfect meet points, and if you go about it the right way repeatability is great. I can find no fault with the head. 

KMT have fixed the dopstick issue, I have just tried their new dops and had no issues at all so no more problems.

For a newbie SOM user the lack of a rounding pre-former will make things a bit harder. I hope KMT will come up with something simple that will be supplied with the machine, this will then become a very complete, user friendly machine. All other shapes, ovals, cushions, pear etc. can be done by eye. There is no transfer block, you can read more about this on previous pages. The base is solid, speed control is good. KMT gives a lifetime warranty to all the mechanical parts and 6 months on the electronics.

Setting up the machine is important, because if it's not done correctly you are not going to get perfect meets and probably a frustrating experience. Everything I have written on the previous pages about the jamb peg applies to the Som.

At the time of writing this I have cut 20+ stones without a problem, machine performed perfectly, gave me perfect meets.

 I would have no hesitation in recommending the Som to anyone interested  in trying their hand at cutting with the jamb peg. It's not hard, as the SOM is a very user friendly machine.