I am both a lapidary an metal jewelry maker. I bought a very nice lapidary arbor with plated diamond grinding wheels and resin sanding and polishing wheels. The resin wheels do a great job of sanding and initial polishing silver too (only the flats). I am curious if anyone else does this with their resin wheels? I suspect that it is not the best way to treat your resin wheels, but I make a lot more jewelry than lapidary. I do wonder if, in addition to wearing the resin out prematurely, I might not be embedding small bits of metal in the resin that will prevent me from getting a good polish on lapidary. I have not noticed this problem yet. Any thoughts are appreciated. Thanks…Rob
My Father was the very first person to
Introduce “Diamond Dresser Wheels"
into Canada & North America. This was
back in 1947.
In fact, the National Film Board of Canada
made a film of this new business.
Lorne Green was the commentator, of the
"Bonanza” fame…
Diamond Dresser Tools were used
In England in WW2. He had the sole
contract to produce them. They were used
to clean metal from the grinding wheels
and the Diamond Tools were used to
re-sharpen these wheels.
The diamonds were hand picked by him
and usually in the 1-carat size of Industrial
quality only… they were & still named
as “boarts”…fully “included” and of all
colours… brown, black & brown!
So all of those wheels & tools today
came from him!!. fine legacy, agree?
Gerry! from my IPhone!
I have other methods that I prefer for polishing flat silver pieces, however I have polished stone and silver together quite often in stone inlay pieces that I make. I have not noticed any problems with contamination of the wheels, however lately I did buy a new set of resin wheels for my diamond pacific genie and now use the old wheels on another machine exclusively for polishing stone and metal together. I did have some silver specks end up embedded in the jade in a cuff bracelet one time using this method. Jade is subject to “orange peel” issues in polishing and I have not encountered any similar problems with other lapidary materials.
John
1 Like
I also do a lot of inlay. I mostly use a flat lap with resin/diamond bonded disks. I used said disks for polishing softer stones like turquoise and lapis.
I haven’t noticed any silver contamination on the stones but I rarely cut jade.
If I’m doing an inlay piece with harder stones like jasper, agate, petrified wood, etc. then I’ll use the 8" wheels for the roughing work down to 180 grit then finish on the flat lap.
Rick Copeland
Rocky Mountain Wonders
Resin is softer than silver and should be ok to use on your rock lathe. I have an 8 wheel rock lathe system for carving stones, cab making and hand faceting, no problem when lightly using the same for silver and gold.