Faceting lap issues - Gem Related Discussion - IGS Forums

Hello. I too am an amateur hobby facetor. I started cutting mid-December (pretty much exactly 1 year ago).
I too have had some issues with older laps that appeared to be damaged or contaminated somehow. I have since move to using Topper Laps which I have had No Issues with. But my biggest problem was with Polishing. I have 260, 600, and grit Topper Laps. I pre-polish almost everything with the . I have only ever used my Copper lap for prepolishing a few times (after giving it a new surface).

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The laps I started with for pre-polishing and final polishing all started scratching my stones. It’s super frustrating. So I did two things that have made a world of difference for me.

1. I got my Tin Lap re-turned at a machine shop … to ensure a new, clean, uncontaminated surface. I use it almost specifically for polishing Corundum (lab-made Ruby/Sapphire), CZ and sometimes use it to polish Garnets or even stubborn Peridot. I use 60,000 grit Battstik on it.
   I resurfaced the copper lap on my own and use it for grit prepolishing.

2. I purchased a “Matrix” polishing lap (Ceramic) … I use it specifically for Oxide Polishing (it can be used for diamond OR oxides but not both). I use the Aluminum and Super Cerium Oxide Battstiks on it along with “Snake Fluid”.
   To be honest, I’ve had pretty good luck with a Corian lap as well. I know people are going to laugh at my reply but I survive on a Disability Pension so I have to work with what I have and a very limited budget. I’ve been pretty lucky so far and am super-satisfied with Matrix Lap. I couldn’t afford anything better if I wanted to. So it has paid off very well for me.

Between the two changes/investments, I have not had ANY more issues with scratching during the polishing process, making me a happy camper !

So the only advice I can suggest is either New Laps (including Toppers) if you are getting bad scratches while Cutting OR find a way to decontaminate your current laps. But I understand it’s hard to decontaminate a diamond lap if you don’t know where the contamination is. One can spend a significant amount of time with a loupe trying to find the source of scratches and there’s no guarantee you will see/find anything. Even if you can see the source, getting it out can be another problem. I guess the only other thing would be to run the lap in reverse and run some “material” (CZ or Corundum ?) over the entire surface with hopes that it might back-out the contaminate.

I hear you! I also am a non-professional, but have many, many years, on and off, of experiencing the frustration everyone seems to keep reliving.
What have I done? The complexity, I think, is because of the lack of reasonable communication and study. It is an issue that authors would rather not get into and don’t really offer help, Sure aggregation can be a cause, but what to do about it. For the last 6 months I have experienced virtually none of the horrors you all speak about. To my surprise, a solutions is not complicated.
Yes, of course be careful and wash disks and hands often. When you have scratches on your polishing laps with Cerium Oxide or Alimina A, try this;
If the scratching is clearly a single speck, spin the disk and any speed and apply a pad of fine steel wool with moderate pressure to the wet surface for about 15 seconds. Run water if you wish. Unmount the disc and wash thoroughly. The fleck should be gone. If not repeat. It has not failed for me, 4 times. out of more the 60 stones.
If the scratches are multiple and not severe try this. During cleaning of the disk with water, dry it with a piece of LINEN toweling. It has to be linen, cotton won’t do. When you are done, you will find that the cloth has swaths of black on it.and the disk has a burnished sheen. I suspect this black is an oxide of lead which remains with routine washing. Over time the black mess reduces to almost nothing. Since doing this I have had no scratches, whereas before it was almost routine that “scratching happens”.
Now to diamond disks 600 to 3,000. Once you are sure that there are no REAL defects on the disk, and that can be a problem, as I have found to my dismay, (that is, flecks of contaminating oversized diamond embedded on he surface) I did something that is probably heresy! I had been using distilled water with a small amount of surfactant. The scratches strongly suggested aggregation of rock dust producing multiple shallow scratches, but scratches nonetheless. OK I can understand that! But what to do?? Books were and are no help. So out of the box----STOP using water. On each of the 4 problem disks I used WD-40 instead, no water. I suspect other penetrating oils will do. I started with an old 600 disk that was a trouble maker as well as poor cutter. A liberal spray of WD-40 applied as needed, was applied while spinning at low speed and distributed with a clean finger. I could not believe what happened. This old dull disk started cutting beautifully! And as I moved on to the next steps, there were no scratches. Same with the 1,200. Since doing this step the whole process has been far less irritating. What is happening? The oil prevents aggregation and the centrifugal forces allow the rock flour to spin to the periphery and out of play. If you apply a spurt of oil to the inner aspect, at medium speed, you can see the white ring of dust moving to the edge.
Now the 3,000 diamond disk. I have 3 and each has been a problem from the get-go. Small shallow scratches that could be polished out, with patience. The WD-40 trick helped but not totally. I eventually had to use only scratch-free radii with oil and could get away with it.
As for contaminant bits on disks. I have images of the actually problem that I found by taking close-in images and enlarging them and there it was! Looking like a long teardrop shaped, dark streak with a bright bit at the head end. With finer disks, only the dark streak is visible, but it allowed me to identify the zone I could not use without scratches. One of the four has so many that it is a loss.
Sorry to be so wordy, but I feel an obligation to share my story. Nothing more.

I am a bit late joining the discussion, but I think all of us who are “teaching” ourselves how to facet have run into “psychic overload” when it comes to selecting and using laps. I am a retired psychotherapist so I know frustration and emotional hair pulling episodes professionally

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In the 2 plus years of self instruction on an ultra Tec V-5 - and a couple thousand dollars investing in various laps, grits, books, seminars, etc. I have learned that nothing works all the time with every stone. That should have been printed on the machine.

But I have learned a few things. First is this: the ratio conclusion “the hand sweeping the stone across any lap gets heavier and pushes down more forcefully in direct proportion to the faceter’s increasing level of frustration. The heavier the hand the worse the problems become.”

I have settled on 600, , and grit Sintered laps for stones under 8 mohs, and the same grit on steel laps for 7-9 mohs. I also use BATT laps with on stubborn stones of any mohs hardness. I don’t use the BATT all the time - because I had a bad experience creating an unexpected deep scratch on one (part of my couple thousand investment).

I alternate polishing between a 50k lightning lap; 60k BATT charged with pandimonium; and ultra laps with either Cerium Oxide or Aluminum Oxide. The choice depends on how hard the previous steps were to complete and the mohs hardness of the stones.

All with as light a hand as possible letting the lap do what it was made to do.

The second thing I learned was: the joy of the project is not diminished or increased in relation to the amount of hair I have scattered around the machine.

Larry

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