Post subject: Re: my life story and finding a future in faceting...long wi
Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2018 3:06 am
Established Member
Joined: Tue Jan 09, 2018 8:47 pm Posts: 41
Ok guys, I've had my Polymetric machine for a month or so now, I've cut two round stones, both flame fusion sapphires. I'm really enjoying it, the only regret I have is not getting a machine with a digital angle gauge (even though I've been told it doesn't matter much).
Stone #2, a dark pink flame fusion sapphire with a Portuguese-ish kind of cut I came up with in GCS, I wasn't that impressed.
I wanted to cut even more but most of the rough I have is small and the dops that came with the machine are only well sized for cutting door knobs and paperweights. Anything with a finished size under 3cts is too small for my included dops, so I ordered all of the small sizes. I'm having good luck with black wax so far, no epoxy needed!
I also ordered a 1200 grit lap because the 600 grit scratches were too time consuming to polish out with 8K, that arrives with the dops tomorrow.
Post subject: Re: my life story and finding a future in faceting...long wi
Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2018 8:48 am
Gold Member
Joined: Tue Jul 02, 2013 9:00 am Posts: 1322 Location: Wylie Texas but in Alaska for a while
It good looking stone.
It may be possible to retrofit a angle gage onto you machine.
I bought a used machine, and the first upgrade I made was to put on a digital display.
An experienced cutter who knows their machine well will do fine without one.
But as a beginner it made things so much easier. I can find the height of a new lap in seconds.
I am getting ready to teach faceting at my local club. They have some older graves machines. I am making digital gages for them before I start the classes. It will make it much easier to teach.
The other thing that made things much easier for me as a beginner was banded laps for prepolish and polish.
It makes it so easy to finish off the meets on prepolish and go to polish. If you need to you can jump back to prepolish to get rid of that nasty scratch that is there, and you do not have to change height, index, or anything.
Post subject: Re: my life story and finding a future in faceting...long wi
Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2018 1:51 am
Established Member
Joined: Tue Jan 09, 2018 8:47 pm Posts: 41
wilsonintexas wrote:
It good looking stone.
It may be possible to retrofit a angle gage onto you machine.
I bought a used machine, and the first upgrade I made was to put on a digital display.
An experienced cutter who knows their machine well will do fine without one.
But as a beginner it made things so much easier. I can find the height of a new lap in seconds.
I am getting ready to teach faceting at my local club. They have some older graves machines. I am making digital gages for them before I start the classes. It will make it much easier to teach.
The other thing that made things much easier for me as a beginner was banded laps for prepolish and polish.
It makes it so easy to finish off the meets on prepolish and go to polish. If you need to you can jump back to prepolish to get rid of that nasty scratch that is there, and you do not have to change height, index, or anything.
I'm enjoying the dominatrix I bought, for 8K and 50K, although it's my least-true or least flat lap. I would want to send it back to gearloose to check out the flatness of it, but then I wouldn't be able to polish any stones! It tends to wobble furiously 2 or 3 marks on the depth of cut gauge, which I think is .002-.003" it makes measuring cuts during pre-polishing really difficult, not to mention the pulsating sound of the high and low of the lap. I don't know if it's normal for a dominatrix to have that kind of variation or not because I'm so new, but I know all three of my polypro cutting laps are basically perfectly straight in comparison. I can run my cutting laps slow and basically have steady, predictable needle motion the whole way. At first I thought my arbor or platen was bent/not flat, but it's more than likely the Dominatrix, since it's isolated to that lap .
My biggest problem so far, is overcutting on the pre-polish stage, I can make everything beautiful with a 1200, leaving a perfect amount of space to make the meet at prepolish, but once I'm prepolishing I end up overcutting my angle instead of cutting TO the right angle (that's where I regret not having a digital guage, not super novice friendly)
I've been told "you don't need a digital gauge, just use the design as a template etc." easier said than done, I would be much happier cutting to exact angles!
Post subject: Re: my life story and finding a future in faceting...long wi
Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2018 7:57 pm
Gold Member
Joined: Fri Oct 19, 2007 5:04 pm Posts: 1642 Location: Walnut Creek, CA
One think you might want to check on your dominatrix: look at the back of your lap, there might be something stuck on it (wax, glue, gunk, etc.), so it won't lay flat on the platen.
When I have some wobble on my laps, it's always because some kind of dirt there. Might or might not be your case, but a quick check won't hurt. It takes just a tiny particle to make you feel the wobble.
I've been told "you don't need a digital gauge, just use the design as a template etc." easier said than done, I would be much happier cutting to exact angles!
Agreed, easier said than done. My mentor used to say, "The machine doesn't cut the stone, the operator does." Having digital will not guarantee exact angles, there are still variables that create challenges. Be at peace with your machine, learn it and it will surprise you. Many thousands of spectacular gems have been cut without digital.
Post subject: Re: my life story and finding a future in faceting...long wi
Posted: Tue Nov 06, 2018 9:47 pm
Moderator: Lapidary Arts and Tools
Joined: Tue Jun 12, 2007 6:41 pm Posts: 5534 Location: Massachusetts, USA
Quote:
I've been told "you don't need a digital gauge, just use the design as a template etc." easier said than done, I would be much happier cutting to exact angles!
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