NEW!!

One-Step Prepolish/Polish Lap!

The BATTWING™ Lap! The Redwing™ lap was very popular and successful until the metal prices made me stop offering them. Many are still in use. The outer copper band was used with 3K or 8K diamond for prepolishing, and the BATT™ center was used for either diamond or oxide polishing. The benefits were obvious: No lap changing between prepolish and polish stages. No height adjustment changes. Now that the use of the BATT™ lap with 3,000 diamond has been established for years, and the recenly-introduced Darkside™ has been so enthusiastically used, reviewed, and accepted, it can finally be time to bring back the Redwing™ concept!! While manufacturing them is very labor-intensive, at least the Darkside's affordable composition can contribute to some price savings, especially compared to buying both a BATT™ for prepolishing and a Darkside™ for polishing. As anyone reading the various forums knows, 3K BATT™ followed by CeO on the Darkside™ is the only realistic, practical way of profitably prepolishing and polishing the quartzes. With Alumina on the center Darkside™ Section, anything else can be quickly polished. Some people prefer diamond, from 50,000 to 200,000 on the Darkside™, especially for the sapphires. From the days of the Redwing™ onward, the first response is always, "What about contamination?" The only rule is to use the same care you use when switching laps...Wipe the stone clean between operations. Here is why: 1) The film of swarf, carrier, coolant, etc., always moves outward by centrifugal Force. "Downstream" contamination from polish to the prepolish band does no harm. 2) The airflow on the surface of the spinning lap is a complex torus whose movement at the lap surface is an outward spiral, the steepness of which varies with speed. The trend is always outward. I suggest that people who have not yet gained actual use experience on both BATT and Darkside should probably buy a BATT and a Darkside, because the two materials have differing charging and preparation methods, and learning both at the same time on one single lap could be confusing. WATCH IT WORK: 8 Facets prepolished and polished in a minute! (You Tube Video, runtime 1 Minute.) The BATT STORE ONLINE: To the GEARLOOSE Homepage. To the DARKSIDE Page. To the BATT Page.