Hi, I am polishing a 3cm by 4cm piece of flourite with step cut edges.
Dors anyone have advice on cutting and polishing very large flourite facets/tables?
I am currently using a 3000 lightning lap with wayer as a coolant.
On a side note I have found that adding a smudge of AlOx Bat Stick to the lap has deglazed and flattened the lap.
Regards
Gordon
Hi Gordon, I've cut and polished fluorite a few times. I've had no trouble polishing on a tin lap with 50,000 diamond grit. If I was to cut and polish fluorite again I would be more likely see how I'd go with a perspex lap and 50,000 synth paste after using a 3000 diamond disc prepolish. Not sure how large the table is? I used to find a large table a pain to polish, but these days I always use a texta and colour in the table and rub it on the disc to find the difficult cloudy patches and use the fine adjustment screw that raises or lowers the protractor to hit that sweet spot. Here's a link of me polishing fluorite on my youtube channel, hope it helps. Cheers Cliff
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5kFEbmJFVY&t=41s
Thanks Cliff,
The table's really large, 30 x 40mm. It's basically two flat faces to show off the banding with faceted edges for a display.
I ended up polishing the base on our cabbing machine after using a 1600 plated lap to get it flat.
I'll give your suggestion a go on the table as the base is slightly rounded at the edges.
The biggest hurdle so far is that due to its size, the stone aquaplanes.
If you use 50k diamond on tin, or tin alloy, make sure you rub most of the polish mix off the surface (to avoid "aquaplaning") then spend plenty of time making sure the table is absolutely flat to the lap. When you get it right, the stone will probably squeal at you - two flat surfaces in perfect contact create a harmonic vibration. It often sounds like it will destroy the stone, but doesn't.
Yep, Aquaplaning will occur on large facets. I've had aquaplaning with really large facets before on very worn 3000 diamond discs doing prepolishes. Less water is the solution, but you run the risk of scratching. It's a pain....Cliff
Thanks Cliff.
Yes, Im getting aquaplaning on the 3000 lap as well the work is a piece of slab and there are planes on the table and cutlet facet that are not polishing or prepolishing until I polish the face down to them, a bit like undercutting, but most likely subsurface damage from sawing.
My solution is to prepolish to a point on the faceting machine to get the table/cutlet facet in the plane then to prepolish on a 3000 wheel on our cabbing machine and polish with tin oxide on a felt wheel. Then go back to the faceting machine and cut and polish the border facets and girdle. These at least don't aquaplane.
Anyway, thank you for the advice.
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