Hi Michelle,
It is hard to know exactly what you have without a picture or better
description, but all of the Star equipment I see pictured on line
looks very sturdy. These things usually run forever, but can use some
repair if they were run a lot or misused. A few things to start you
off. Take a look at some images of lapidary machines on line (google
"cabbing machine images") and you will see that many of the machines
are similar and that they usually use a drip feed of water to the
wheels. Therefore the wheels and the hood over them and the pan
beneath are all designed to run with water all over them, so don’t
hesitate to wash it down. You can use shop towels and whatever
detergent cleaner you like to break up any dirt, grease and rust. You
can also use a hose to help clean it. The only areas you need to try
to keep somewhat dry are the motor and cord. the hoods should protect
the motor somewhat. You may have to clean out plastic water lines or
needle valves or provide a bucket of water if the water system is
lost.
Some have pumps that pump water from below and work off little
aquarium bubblers or pumps attached to the motor shaft. The latter
may need cleaning out.
Turn the shaft by hand and see if it turns smoothly or is locked up.
Examine the wheels to see if there are any cracks or broken pieces.
If not and if it turns smoothly or even just a little roughly, you
can plug it in and start it up. Stay to the side when you first start
any grinding equipment in case there is a broken wheel that flies
apart. If the machine looks really poor, you might want to start it
up the first time outdoors with the wheels pointed in a direction
where flying debris will not hit anything. Just being careful, not
likely that anything is broken.
Some of these motors run very hot, so do not worry about that. Do
smell for burning wires and after it has run a little, turn it off
and listen to it spin. When the motor is not making any noise, it
should be pretty quiet. If it rumbles a lot, it may need new
bearings. You may be able to run a machine with worn bearings a while
and just tolerate the noise, if the bearings don’t heat up too much.
Look for a couple of oil holes and oil with something like SAE 30
non-detergent oil or whatever the machine label says. You likely will
not find anyplace for oil, as most of these motors have sealed
bearings.
You can look at lapidary catalogs to see what wheels they have that
look like yours. If you have diamond wheels that still have some life
left in them, you are in luck and have hit the jackpot. But the
machine may have expanding drums that take silicon carbide paper or
diamond belts or it may have a couple of grinding wheels that are
silicon carbide. Not as good as diamond, but perfectly adequate for
anything but corundum and will even work that but will wear down
doing it.
I could guide you through the whole process of figuring out what you
have, but it would get to be a long message. A better bet would be to
make contact with your local Gem and Mineral Club. There will
definitely be some old codgers there who know all about these
machines and can help you figure out what grits you have on your
wheels if it is not completely apparent on looking. You probably have
two hard grinding wheels of about 80 and 200 grit and then possibly
four resin bonded diamond wheels of 280, 400, 600 and 1500 grit
diamond, but that’s a guess. Im thinking that the “flat lap”: you’re
referring to is a polishing pad on the end of the thing and that
takes a felt or leather or pellon polishing disk that you use with
cerium or alumina oxide or very fine diamond polish. If you can’t
find help you’re welcome to email me at rkersey@tds. net and I can
probably help you figure it out.
Any decent sized public library should have a book or two with
chapters on cutting cabs. If you check, you’ll see that the new
cabbing machines with fresh new wheels are about $1000 and up, so
what you have is probably well worth saving and fixing up. If the
bearings are really bad, they can be replaced by a machine shop and
it probably wouldn’t cost that much and you’d have a virtually new
machine. I don’t think you will find any used equipment like this
that works for less than $400 or so…
Good luck, cabbing is fun.