Had a crack at the Smith Bar, by Jeff Graham. Usually I’m fine polishing beryls but this guy just wouldn’t behave, possibly due to the extreme angles I needed to do.

  • Crylos@lemmy.worldMEnglish
    2·
    11 months ago

    Bar is another cut I haven’t done yet and is on my list.

    What were you using to polish? My go to is a Batt with 60k diastk from gearloose for most stones.

    • Dyntrall@lemmy.worldOP
      2·
      11 months ago

      I’ve just started using a CeO lightning lap, and I’m finally getting a good polish on quartzes. Every time I try to buy gearloose products suddenly the guy announces he’s retiring and all his stuff sells out.

      • Crylos@lemmy.worldMEnglish
        1·
        11 months ago

        Wow… either great marketing, or he’s not sure what he’s doing. I may have to stock up on some things if I can get them from him.

        Haven’t used that kind of lap before, where did you pick it up from?

        Also what’s the lap you use for pre-polish. I have a 20+ year old Crystalite 3000 I use that almost polishes the facets. I’d picked up a new version of it a few years back, but all it does is create random deep scratches along with doing the pre-polish. I’ve tried cleaning it and using a pumice stone to try and get rid of any contamination but to no avail.

        • Dyntrall@lemmy.worldOP
          1·
          11 months ago

          The gearloose guy is in his 80s and does pretty much everything himself, as he’s not really trained anyone else the secrets behind his laps are likely to die with him. This seems to be a common thing in faceting - we rely on a couple of people to know/do lots, and then they get old and die and stuff is lost.

          I buy direct from Lightning Lap - https://lightninglap.com/

          I’m using their resin 1200 as my propolish, as it’s been recommended as a replacement for the now defunct NuBonds (it cuts closer to a 3k steel lap so works as prepolish). It’s been a lot better behaved than my old steel 3ks, certainly. I’ve got a Linde A lap of theirs coming in the post which I’m excited to try. I’ve never had much luck with anything I need to spread a polishing slurry on, so stuff that just needs water is ideal for me!

          I’ve been recently going 600 steel to 1200 resin to CeOx, but I should probably put a 1200 steel in there as well, as being lazy probably made the polish not great.

          https://lightninglap.com/collections/laps/products/lightning-lap-dlite-diamond-laps

          https://lightninglap.com/collections/laps/products/lightning-lap-ceox-cerium-oxide-polishing-lap

          I’m in the UK so I seem to pay more for postage and tax than the value of the discs!