Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2015 4:08 pm Posts: 381 Location: Lyon, France
I was prepolishing my stone and then absently went directly to polish without wiping down my stone or anything. I put 3000 grit diastick residue from the stone into the inner ring of the dominatrix. It dug some shockingly deep horizontal gouges into my facet. Just to be sure I thoroughly cleaned the stone with alcohol and rubbed down the inner ring with clean paper towel and tried another facet. More horizontal deep gouges in my facet. Now I'm traumatized. Is there a way to clean the inner ring or have I ruined it for polishing?
Post subject: Re: I just contaminated my Dominatrix!
Posted: Sun May 14, 2017 3:50 pm
Moderator: Lapidary Arts and Tools
Joined: Tue Jun 12, 2007 6:41 pm Posts: 5534 Location: Massachusetts, USA
The Diamatrix center is not a deep-charging lap. Just take a white rubber drafting eraser and run it on the Diamatrix portion, making rubber crumbs. the rubber will pluck out the diamond. "Rubber" was originally named because it was used for removing graphite from paper. It does similarly with diamond. They are both carbon, and love the rubber. Sweep up the crumbs and resume. This nearly always works.
Post subject: Re: I just contaminated my Dominatrix!
Posted: Sun May 14, 2017 4:13 pm
Valued Contributor
Joined: Sun Aug 21, 2016 7:39 am Posts: 228 Location: Long Island NY, USA
Gearloose wrote:
The Diamatrix center is not a deep-charging lap. Just take a white rubber drafting eraser and run it on the Diamatrix portion, making rubber crumbs. the rubber will pluck out the diamond. "Rubber" was originally named because it was used for removing graphite from paper. It does similarly with diamond. They are both carbon, and love the rubber. Sweep up the crumbs and resume. This nearly always works.
Post subject: Re: I just contaminated my Dominatrix!
Posted: Sun May 14, 2017 6:06 pm
Moderator: Lapidary Arts and Tools
Joined: Tue Jun 12, 2007 6:41 pm Posts: 5534 Location: Massachusetts, USA
Oh that artgum stuff? I never tried it but suspect the diamond really needs more pressure and friction for it to grab the diamond. I have not heard fo anyone using it. The thing is to avoid the regular red rubber erasers, because man of them can contain a mineral grit. -Just like some of those 3M scrubbers can have an abrasive, or be confused with Bright Boy pads used in machine shops.
Post subject: Re: I just contaminated my Dominatrix!
Posted: Sun May 14, 2017 6:30 pm
Valued Contributor
Joined: Sun Aug 21, 2016 7:39 am Posts: 228 Location: Long Island NY, USA
Gearloose wrote:
Oh that artgum stuff? I never tried it but suspect the diamond really needs more pressure and friction for it to grab the diamond. I have not heard fo anyone using it. The thing is to avoid the regular red rubber erasers, because man of them can contain a mineral grit. -Just like some of those 3M scrubbers can have an abrasive, or be confused with Bright Boy pads used in machine shops.
Yep...got tons of kneaded erasers left from my dad's stuff ( professional artist). Figured if they can be used with both graphite and drawing charcoal without leaving any trace of carbon or crumbs, maybe they'd be good, maybe better in fact, for decontaminating laps of diamond grit without crumbs? I wouldn't know, because I've got an idiots luck with all things lapidary! I miss polishes on laps like crazy. I've got two siamese cats who want to participate, and then leave their hair everywhere. And,To be frank, I'm kind of a slob,...I toss my matrix or Diamatrix or zinc+ Carelessly aside on top of a bookshelf in my faceting room, they collect a thin veneer of dust before I use them again, I merely wipe them down with a drop extender and a paper towel, and I never ever seem to have contamination issues....at least, so far. I even had great luck with a ceramic lap.Now that I've stated this in writing, I've probably changed over to mush.
Post subject: Re: I just contaminated my Dominatrix!
Posted: Sun May 14, 2017 9:08 pm
Active Member
Joined: Sat Apr 22, 2017 3:26 am Posts: 64
@ Gearloose This is good information to have but I'm still not crystal about the type of white rubber. When I google "white rubber drafting eraser" I get a variety come up. Plastic, vinyl, pink rubber. Does it have to be a latex rubber made from rubber tree sap or will the ubiquitous Staedtler Mars Plastic Eraser work.
Last edited by Richard Burton on Sun May 14, 2017 9:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Post subject: Re: I just contaminated my Dominatrix!
Posted: Thu Jul 13, 2017 5:43 pm
Moderator: Lapidary Diamonds
Joined: Mon Aug 20, 2012 11:32 pm Posts: 1747 Location: Florida, United States
micellular wrote:
Me too. I just did the same thing to the diamatrix on my DiaZ+. Ten toothbrush scrubs with various soaps and a regular white eraser did not fix it.
You have discovered the downside of double-banded laps. Try this: Buy a bar of Lava soap. Mount the contaminated lap on your faceting machine platen and fasten it down. Turn the motor on at moderate speed. Open the drip tank spigot so you get at a stream of water on the lap. Run the Lava soap bar on the lap from the center to the periphery back and forth 10 times. Turn the speed up to high. Let the lap spin rinse for a minute then turn off the spigot and let it spin dry. Use a hard stone with a pre-polished facet to check for any remaining contamination. If this does not clear off the stray hard grits, send the lap to Gearloose for resurfacing.
Post subject: Re: I just contaminated my Dominatrix!
Posted: Fri Jul 14, 2017 2:14 pm
Active Member
Joined: Thu Feb 18, 2016 12:21 pm Posts: 50
Well, I tried both the lava soap and the eraser method two times each last night with tons of water and scrubbing in between. I also switched to a brand-new stick of Pandemonium 100k (was using Blakstik 100k before), and I'm still having scratches all over the place. I know they are popping up on polish too, because sometimes relatively huge ones appear right as the facet looks almost finished.
I'm starting to think that my yoke is out of parallel with the platen (it's a known problem on my UT v2, and I thought I fixed it months ago). Hypothesis: If it is out of parallel with the plate, the facet will change height during sweeping. Depending on the direction of lap rotation, a few things can happen:
1) it can either introduce an edge to the lap (causing edge chipping -> gouging from the broken particle)
2) a gap can form between facet and lap surface. Diamond can ball up in the gap and skitter across the surface (I have a vague recollection of reading something on this.)
Sanity check please? Do either of those scenarios make sense?
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 34 guests
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot post attachments in this forum