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- Sep 11, 2014
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This is where my special alloy polishing lap proved beyond doubt its superiority to other polish laps. I gathered a Zinc,Batt,Type metal, and Special Alloy lap. I firstly resurfaced the laps to remove any previous diamond and oxides. The first run was a 3000 pre-polish with a 100,000 finish on the already split lap. I used a light oil mix without any additives and got good results in the 100,000 on all laps but a poor result on all laps with the best being the Special Alloy but not much in it. I added some lubricants and got a slightly better poor result with a better result on the zinc overall.Although the zinc was satisfactory it was after a few facets inconsistent. Oil just wasnt working. So I went through my cupboards to look for water based lubricants and found a very basic fluid that was safe and easily available. I added the polish and lubricants and stared to polish. The results were instant across the board but all required an additional light spray of water every few facets or marks started to appear. I noticed that the Type metal lap started to produce an inconsistent surface if polished too long but still a polish that was scratch free. Zinc also gave mixed results but very sharp flat facets and quickly. I put this down to its hardness and will revisit it when I improve the formula. Its now down to the Batt and Special Alloy. This is what I wanted. A final result that was on the lap I developed and the most popular American lap the Batt.
Lets look at the stone prep. I first preformed a 15mm smoky quartz and clear. I then cut the full pavillion on the 800 sintered disc and it took 4.5 minutes. I then polished all the mains and girdle facets one on the Batt and the other the Special Alloy. The results were what was interesting as I got exceptionally sharp flat facets that were scratch free on the Special and a few random scratches easily fixed with the Batt. Its the time that shocked me. I used a 10X lense to get best meets and a perfect polish. It took me less than 12 minutes. That's great for any stone but on Quartz thats exceptional. Did I say perfect by lense. Of course I did. More on the polish. Firstly the 3000 was a good finish but not as shinny as the diamond finish on other stones,but it was clean and moved facets easily. It the transitioned to 100,000 very easily and still moved facets on a smaller scale as you would expect from a fine finish. Its the sharpness and clean finish that got me happy to polish quartz again. Once again the Special alloy was faster and no scratching at all.
But it doesn't end there. I made a diamond equivalent water based polish and it was also faster sharper and easier to cleanup. On both solutions I got great results with minimum amounts of polish as I have heard comments about water based polish being more wasteful.
http://facetinglaps.blogspot.com.au/
Regards Anthony
Lets look at the stone prep. I first preformed a 15mm smoky quartz and clear. I then cut the full pavillion on the 800 sintered disc and it took 4.5 minutes. I then polished all the mains and girdle facets one on the Batt and the other the Special Alloy. The results were what was interesting as I got exceptionally sharp flat facets that were scratch free on the Special and a few random scratches easily fixed with the Batt. Its the time that shocked me. I used a 10X lense to get best meets and a perfect polish. It took me less than 12 minutes. That's great for any stone but on Quartz thats exceptional. Did I say perfect by lense. Of course I did. More on the polish. Firstly the 3000 was a good finish but not as shinny as the diamond finish on other stones,but it was clean and moved facets easily. It the transitioned to 100,000 very easily and still moved facets on a smaller scale as you would expect from a fine finish. Its the sharpness and clean finish that got me happy to polish quartz again. Once again the Special alloy was faster and no scratching at all.
But it doesn't end there. I made a diamond equivalent water based polish and it was also faster sharper and easier to cleanup. On both solutions I got great results with minimum amounts of polish as I have heard comments about water based polish being more wasteful.
http://facetinglaps.blogspot.com.au/
Regards Anthony