My wife and I are getting into faceting. We have a Graves faceting machine and are looking into what discs are good for beginning this hobby. I looked into the sets that Graves sells but I’m looking for some more insight. Any positive suggestions or opinions are welcome. Thanks.
260-600-1200 Normal Diamond laps. Dlite 1200 pre polish lap and à darkside polish lap.
Cerium oxide. Alu oxide and 60000 dia stick
And you cover most Stones. If you cutting big stones a 100 grit lap will be good too.
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Good suggestions by @Clayboy above. I’ll add that everyone should have a Master Lap. Aluminum ones are just fine, as they simply hold any topper polishing or cutting laps you may decide to purchase.
Kingsley North is a good source for just about anything lap-wise.
As you will discover, every Gem cutter has their own recipe for laps, to give an example of this I rough on 260, smooth on 600 or 800 sintered then go to 3000 or 8000 on copper for the pre-polish, depending on the material Moh and finish with 60,000 on Tin, this combination I use for everything. I do not use any synthetics. and I only use Cerium on Opal. All my diamond I buy as powder, no pre-mixes.
The most important factor is keeping your pre-polish and polish laps absolutely flat, this will eliminate the need to cheat.
Secondly develop you own working lap combination and get good with it, newcomers to the art/skill are quick to blame their equipment/laps etc when their hand and eye holds the key to their problems.
Finally cross contamination of laps will do your head in, be meticulous with cleanliness at all stages.
Good luck and enjour your new hobby, it immensely rewarding.
Well, I’m pretty late to this discussion, but I’ll illustrate the truth of Dihusky’s statement of individuality by giving my recommendation. I’d get a master lap and a coarse topper of 260-320. I’d also get a 3 inch flange washer and a 6 inch thin saw blade to use on the faceting machine. You can use that, in many cases, instead of a coarse lap and have less subsurface damage. Do this unless you already have a good trim saw. You can even dop up the rough and then use the saw blade. A 600 sintered is a good purchase, but quite expensive and I might defer that purchase and use a plated lap, a topper, or a charged BATT lap until I was sure that I’d do enough cutting that I wanted a sintered lap that would probably outlive me. A dual ring lap with prepolish on the outer area and a polishing center would be good, say a Darkside or Matix or Diamatrix from Gearloose. One less adjustment to make with the dual rings. I differ from Dihusky in that I would use an oxide polish on quartz especially and also on other stones which can take one, as the consensus (I think) is that it’s a slightly better polish that diamond. Use diamond on sapphire and topaz and a few others. The BATTsticks from Gearloose are good and free one from the nuisance and scratches of slurries. Good luck! -royjohn