Finished stone damaged when removing from dop

Prooz said:

I concentrate the heat on the dop and epoxy, lay a piece of folded tissue on the bench holding one end of the dop let the stone rest on the bench fold up one end of the tissue to protect from heat and pop the stone out with fingernail, the stone is hot quickly run around it with your fingernail and scrape off any remaining epoxy, sometimes the stone comes out clean, depends on how much heat. When cool I lower the stone into metho over night most times. Do not drop into glass jar this is enough to chip the stone.

I have chipped a stone dropping from a height of 2" onto a plastic pod lid, that was enough to chip the girdle. I am using Dextone Epoxy.

PS I would not shock the stone with water (re the wet Rag)

Cheers Prooz.

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Pat Hogen said:

"JB Were Kwik"- really powerful stuff Bullwinkle, the hotter the glue gets the harder the grip gets. I only use Loctite "Precision" super glue, a small dot in or on a dop, allow to set for an hour or two, bond over with Tite-on or a similar two part.
To remove, warm the dop in a gas flame (cigarette lighter) with a piece of wet chamois to grip the stone, remove the heat, wait 30 seconds and pass the flame along the dop again to heat the bond in the dop, give the stone a small twist to see if it moves, if it doesn't give a bit more heat along the dop until it moves. The stone should clear from the dop and leave any dopping mix behind. If you need to clean a stone do so with a debonder that can be obtained from a shop that sells ZAP used on the model planes and boats and cars, otherwise nail polish remover or acetone does a useful job of sorts. Keep that Zap away from the olfactory organ. :| A bladed knife as in a box cutter is very handy for scraping the glue off if needs be.

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Dihusky said:

I think we have all had this happen at some stage Bullwinkle, Topaz which has perfect fracture planes, is prone to it, even stones splitting when cutting.

I use JB Kwik, but sometimes soak it for several days in Acetone. Small jar with a hole in the lid just big enough to hold the Dop, but of Bluetack to seal and hold the stone off the bottom. A gentle twist usually gets the stone off or it goes back for more soaking.

Used to use Tite-on but no longer available unfortunately.

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